Chapter XII.
Mr. Knightley was to dine with them, rather against the inclination of Mr.
Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in
Isabella’s first day. Emma’s sense of right, however, had decided it; and,
besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had
particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement between
Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper invitation.
She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time
to make up. Making-up, indeed, would not do. She certainly had not been in
the wrong, and he would never own that he had. Concession must be out of
the question: but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever
quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of friendship,
that when he came into the room she had one of the children with her,—the
youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who was now making her
first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced about in her aunt’s arms.
It did assist; for though he began with grave looks and short questions, he
was soon led on to talk of them all in the usual way, and to take the child
out of her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt
they were friends again; and the conviction giving her at first great
satisfaction, and then a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was
admiring the baby,—
“What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces.
As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with
regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.”
“If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and
women, and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings
with them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always
think alike.”
“To be sure—our discordances must always arise from my being in the
wrong.”
“Yes,” said he, smiling, “and reason good. I was sixteen years old when
you were born.”
“A material difference, then,” she replied; “and no doubt you were much
my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the lapse of
one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer?”
“Yes, a good deal nearer.”
“But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we think
differently.”
“I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years’ experience, and by not
being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, let
us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma, that she
ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances, and
that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”
“That’s true,” she cried, “very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman
than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr.
Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good intentions
went, we were both right, and I must say, that no effects on my side of the
argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that Mr. Martin is
not very, very bitterly disappointed.”
“A man cannot be more so,” was his short, full answer.
“Ah! Indeed I am very sorry. Come, shake hands with me.”
This had just taken place, and with great cordiality, when John Knightley
made his appearance; and “How d‘ye do, George?” and “John, how are
you?” succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that
seemed all but indifference the real attachment which would have led either
of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the other.
The evening was quiet and conversible, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards
entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and the little
party made two natural divisions: on one side he and his daughter; on the
other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally distinct, or very rarely
mixing, and Emma only occasionally joining in one or the other.
The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally of
those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative, and
who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally some
point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious anecdote to
give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at Donwell, he had
to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to give all such local
information as could not fail of being interesting to a brother, whose home
it had equally been the longest part of his life, and whose attachments were
strong. The plan of a drain, the change of a fence, the felling of a tree, and
the destination of every acre for wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered
into with as much equality of interest by John as his cooler manners
rendered possible; and if his willing brother ever left him any thing to
enquire about, his enquiries even approached a tone of eagerness.
While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was
enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.
“My poor dear Isabella,” said he, fondly taking her hand, and interrupting,
for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her five children,
“how long it is, how terribly long since you were here! And how tired you
must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, my dear,—and I
recommend a little gruel to you before you go. You and I will have a nice
basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.”
Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing, as she did, that both
the Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself, and two
basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of gruel,
with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every body, he
proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,—
“It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South
End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.”
“Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir, or we should not
have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for the
weakness in little Bella’s throat,—both sea air and bathing.”
“Ah, my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any
good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though
perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use to any
body. I am sure it almost killed me once.”
“Come, come,” cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, “I must
beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable; I who
have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear Isabella,
I have not heard you make one enquiry after Mr. Perry yet; and he never
forgets you.”
“Oh, good Mr. Perry, how is he, sir?”
“Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has not
time to take care of himself; he tells me he has not time to take care of
himself—which is very sad—but he is always wanted all round the country.
I suppose there is not a man in such practice any where. But then, there is
not so clever a man any where.”
“And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? Do the children grow? I
have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He will be
so pleased to see my little ones.”
“I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask him
about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, you
had better let him look at little Bella’s throat.”
“Oh, my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any
uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to her, or
else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr. Wingfield’s,
which we have been applying at times ever since August.”
“It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use to her;
and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have spoken
to—”
“You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates,” said Emma; “I
have not heard one enquiry after them.”
“Oh, the good Bateses—I am quite ashamed of myself; but you mention
them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs.
Bates. I will call upon her to- morrow, and take my children. They are
always so pleased to see my children. And that excellent Miss Bates!—such
thorough worthy people! How are they, sir?”
“Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a
bad cold about a month ago.”
“How sorry I am! but colds were never so prevalent as they have been this
autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he had never known them more general
or heavy, except when it has been quite an influenza.”
“That has been a good deal the case, my dear, but not to the degree you
mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy as
he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it altogether
a sickly season.”
“No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it very sickly, except—”
“Ah, my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always a sickly
season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a dreadful thing
to have you forced to live there;—so far off!—and the air so bad!”
“No, indeed, we are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is so very
superior to most others. You must not confound us with London in general,
my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very different from
almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be unwilling, I own, to live
in any other part of the town; there is hardly any other that I could be
satisfied to have my children in: but we are so remarkably airy! Mr.
Wingfield thinks the vicinity of Brunswick Square decidedly the most
favourable as to air.”
“Ah, my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it—but after
you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different creatures;
you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say that I think you are any of
you looking well at present.”
“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir: but I assure you, excepting those little
nervous headaches and palpitations which I am never entirely free from any
where, I am quite well myself; and if the children were rather pale before
they went to bed, it was only because they were a little more tired than
usual, from their journey and the happiness of coming. I hope you will think
better of their looks to-morrow; for I assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that
he did not believe he had ever sent us off, altogether, in such good case. I
trust, at least, that you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill,” turning her
eyes with affectionate anxiety towards her husband.
“Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley
very far from looking well.”
“What is the matter, sir? Did you speak to me?” cried Mr. John Knightley,
hearing his own name.
“I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking
well; but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have wished,
however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you left
home.”
“My dear Isabella,” exclaimed he, hastily, “pray do not concern yourself
about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the
children, and let me look as I choose.”
“I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,”
cried Emma, “about your friend Mr. Graham’s intending to have a bailiff
from Scotland, to look after his new estate. But will it answer? Will not the
old prejudice be too strong?”
And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to
give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing worse to
hear than Isabella’s kind enquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane Fairfax,
though no great favourite with her in general, she was, at that moment, very
happy to assist in praising.
“That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!” said Mrs. John Knightley. “It is so
long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment accidentally
in town. What happiness it must be to her good old grandmother and
excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always regret excessively,
on dear Emma’s account, that she cannot be more at Highbury; but now
their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs. Campbell will not be
able to part with her at all. She would be such a delightful companion for
Emma.”
Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,—
“Our little friend, Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty kind
of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a better
companion than Harriet.”
“I am most happy to hear it; but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so
very accomplished and superior, and exactly Emma’s age.”
This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar
moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not
close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came, and supplied a
great deal to be said—much praise and many comments—undoubting
decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty severe
philippics7 upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerable;
but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter had to instance,
the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in her own cook at
South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never had been able to
understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel, thin, but not too
thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered it, she had never been able to
get any thing tolerable. Here was a dangerous opening.
“Ah,” said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head, and fixing his eyes on her
with tender concern. The ejaculation in Emma’s ear expressed, “Ah, there is
no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It does not bear
talking of.” And for a little while she hoped he would not talk of it, and that
a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the relish of his own
smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes, however, he began with,—
“I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn, instead
of coming here.”
“But why should you be sorry, sir? I assure you, it did the children a great
deal of good.”
“And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been to
South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprised to hear
you had fixed upon South End.”
“I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite a
mistake, sir. We all had our health perfectly well there, never found the least
inconvenience from the mud, and Mr. Wingfield says it is entirely a mistake
to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may be depended on, for
he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and his own brother and
family have been there repeatedly.”
“You should have gone to Cromer,j my dear, if you went any where. Perry
was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the sea-
bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by what I
understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea—a
quarter of a mile off—very comfortable. You should have consulted Perry.”
“But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey; only consider how great it
would have been. A hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.”
“Ah, my dear,” as Perry says, “where health is at stake, nothing else
should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to choose
between forty miles and a hundred. Better not move at all, better stay in
London altogether, than travel forty miles to get into a worse air. This is just
what Perry said. It seemed to him a very ill-judged measure.”
Emma’s attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he had
reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her brother-in-law’s
breaking out.
“Mr. Perry,” said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, “would do as
well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it any
business of his to wonder at what I do?—at my taking my family to one part
of the coast or another? I may be allowed, I hope, the use of my judgment
as well as Mr. Perry. I want his directions no more than his drugs.” He
paused, and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only sarcastic
dryness, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a
distance of a hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or
inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as willing to prefer
Cromer to South End as he could himself.”
“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition, —“very
true. That’s a consideration, indeed. But, John, as to what I was telling you
of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the right
that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive any
difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of
inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly the
present line of the path…. The only way of proving it, however, will be to
turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow morning I hope,
and then we will look them over, and you shall give me your opinion.”
Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend
Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been attributing many
of his own feelings and expressions; but the soothing attentions of his
daughters gradually removed the present evil, and the immediate alertness
of one brother, and better recollections of the other, prevented any renewal
of it.
