Chapter III.
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.a 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 chilblainsb 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,
showing 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
connections. 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. Woodhouse’s 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 visiters 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 visiters 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!
