Emma (3 page)

It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his schemes, but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth, it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could purchase Randalls. It was a dream she shared for the proximity to Highbury and to Emma, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to, but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, obtained his wife and was beginning a new period of existence, with every probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had never been an unhappy man, his own temper had secured him from that even in his first marriage, but his second must show him how delightful a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.

He had only himself to please in his choice, his fortune was his own, for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his uncle’s heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely therefore that he should ever want his father’s assistance. His father had no apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her husband entirely, but it was not in Mr Weston’s nature to imagine that any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and as he believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and was proud of him, and his fond report of him as a very fine young man had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a kind of common concern.

Mr Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit his father had been often talked of but never achieved.

Now, upon his father’s marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs Perry drank tea with Mrs and Miss Bates, or when Mrs and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now was the time for Mr Frank Churchill to come among them, and the hope strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs Weston had received from Mr Weston’s very handsome son. “I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr Frank Churchill has written to Mrs Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter, indeed. Mr Woodhouse told me of it. Mr Woodhouse saw the letter, and he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life.”

It was indeed a highly prized letter. Mrs Weston had of course formed a very favourable idea of the young man, and such a pleasing attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most fortunate woman, and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and who could ill bear to part with her.

She knew that at times she must be missed, and could not think, without pain, of Emma’s losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour’s ennui, from the want of her companionableness—but dear Emma was of no feeble character. She was more equal to her situation than most girls would have been, and had sense and energy and spirits that might be hoped would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and privations. And there was such comfort in the very easy distance of Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking, and in Mr Weston’s disposition and circumstances, which would make the approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in the week together carrying on their discourse as was custom.

Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs Weston, and of moments only of regret. Her satisfaction—her more than satisfaction, her cheerful enjoyment—was so just and so apparent that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprise at his being still able to pity ‘poor Miss Taylor’ when they left her at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort or saw her go away in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her own. But never did she go without Mr Woodhouse giving a gentle sigh, and saying, “Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay.”

There was no recovering Miss Taylor—nor much likelihood of ceasing to pity her, but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr Woodhouse. The compliments of his neighbours were over, he was no longer teased by being wished joy of so sorrowful an event, and the wedding-cake, which had been a great distress to him, was all eaten up. His own stomach could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit for anybody, and he had therefore earnestly tried to dissuade them from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as earnestly tried to prevent anybody’s eating it. He had been at the pains of consulting Mr Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr Perry was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one of the comforts of Mr Woodhouse’s life, and upon being applied to, he could not but acknowledge—though it seemed rather against the bias of inclination—that wedding-cake might certainly disagree with many, perhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an opinion in confirmation of his own, Mr Woodhouse hoped to influence every visitor of the newly married pair, but still the cake was eaten, and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone.

There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being seen with a slice of Mrs Weston’s wedding-cake in their hands, but Mr Woodhouse would never believe it.

Chapter Three

Mr Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to have his friends come and see him, and from various united causes—from his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune, his house and his daughter—he could command the visits of his own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much intercourse with any families beyond that circle. His horror of late hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintances but such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury, including Randalls in the same parish and Donwell Abbey in the parish adjoining the seat of Mr Knightley, comprehended many such. Not infrequently, through Emma’s persuasion, he had some of the chosen and the best to dine with him, but evening parties were what he preferred, and unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a card-table for him.

Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr Knightley—and by Mr Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the elegancies and society of Mr Woodhouse’s drawing room, and the smiles of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away.

After these came a second set, among the most come-at-able of whom were Mrs and Miss Bates, and Mrs Goddard, three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and carried home so often that Mr Woodhouse thought it no hardship for either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it would have been a grievance.

Mrs Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past everything but tea and quadrille. She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour, and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect.

She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother and the endeavour to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman whom no one named without goodwill. It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved everybody, was interested in everybody’s happiness, quicksighted to everybody’s merits, thought herself a most fortunate creature, surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to everybody, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr Woodhouse, full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.

Mrs Goddard was the mistress of a school. Not of a seminary or an establishment, or anything which professed in long sentences of refined nonsense to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems, and where young ladies for enormous pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity. But a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way and scramble themselves into a little education without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs Goddard’s school was in high repute—and very deservedly, for Highbury was reckoned a particularly healthy spot, she had an ample house and garden, gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the occasional holiday of a tea-visit, and having formerly owed much to Mr Woodhouse’s kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose a few sixpences by his fireside.

These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to collect, and happy was she, for her father’s sake, in the power, though, as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of Mrs Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well, but the quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.

As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the present day, a note was brought from Mrs Goddard, requesting in most respectful terms to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her—a most welcome request, for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of her beauty and nearness to her own age. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion, who hoped to gain a new confidant to alleviate the loss of the prior in Mrs Weston, when not available.

Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed her, several years back, at Mrs Goddard’s school, and somebody had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, with no other influences, and was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young ladies who had been at school there with her.

She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features and a look of great sweetness, and before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the acquaintance.

She was not struck by anything remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging—not inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk—and yet so far from pushing, showing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed by the appearance of everything in so superior a style to what she had been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement. Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury and its connections. The acquaintances she had already formed were unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though a very good sort of people, must be doing her harm.

They were a family of the name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large farm of Mr Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell—very creditably, she believed—she knew Mr Knightley thought highly of them—but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance to be quite perfect for her own entertainment.
She
would notice her, she would improve her, she would detach her from her bad acquaintances and introduce her into good society, she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking, highly becoming her own situation in life, her leisure and powers.

She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the evening flew away at a very unusual rate. The supper-table, which always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing everything well and attentively, with the real goodwill of a mind delighted with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil scruples of their guests.