Emma

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

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 acquaintance 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 unfrequently, 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 every thing 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 good-will. It was her own universal good-will and

contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body,

was interested in every body's happiness, quicksighted to every

body's merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and

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 every body, 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 any thing 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. A very gracious

invitation was returned, and the evening no longer dreaded by the

fair mistress of the mansion.

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, 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 any thing 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, shewing so proper and becoming a deference,

seeming so pleasantly grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and

so artlessly impressed by the appearance of every thing 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

connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were unworthy

of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though 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. She would notice

her; she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad

acquaintance, 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; and 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 every thing well and attentively, with the real

good-will 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.

Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouses feelings were in sad

warfare. He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the

fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very

unwholesome made him rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and

while his hospitality would have welcomed his visitors to every

thing, his care for their health made him grieve that they would

eat.

Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that

he could, with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he

might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing

the nicer things, to say:

"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs.

An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands

boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg

boiled by any body else; but you need not be afraid, they are very

small, you see—one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates,

let Emma help you to a little bit of tart—a very little bit. Ours

are all apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome

preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say

you to half a glass of wine? A small half-glass, put into a tumbler

of water? I do not think it could disagree with you."

Emma allowed her father to talk—but supplied her visitors in a

much more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had

particular pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of

Miss Smith was quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so

great a personage in Highbury, that the prospect of the

introduction had given as much panic as pleasure; but the humble,

grateful little girl went off with highly gratified feelings,

delighted with the affability with which Miss Woodhouse had treated

her all the evening, and actually shaken hands with her at

last!