Chapter IV.
Harriet Smith’s intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick and
decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and
telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so did
their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had very
early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect Mrs. Weston’s
loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the shrubbery,
where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long walk, or his
short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston’s marriage her exercise had
been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to Randalls, but it
was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore, one whom she could
summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable addition to her
privileges. But in every respect as she saw more of her, she approved her,
and was confirmed in all her kind designs.
Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful
disposition; was totally free from conceit; and only desiring to be guided by
any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself was very amiable;
and her inclination for good company, and power of appreciating what was
elegant and clever, showed that there was no want of taste, though strength
of understanding must not be expected. Altogether she was quite convinced
of Harriet Smith’s being exactly the young friend she wanted,—exactly the
something which her home required. Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out
of the question. Two such could never be granted. Two such she did not
want. It was quite a different sort of thing,—a sentiment distinct and
independent. Mrs. Weston was the object of a regard which had its basis in
gratitude and esteem. Harriet would be loved as one to whom she could be
useful. For Mrs. Weston there was nothing to be done; for Harriet every
thing.
Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who were
the parents; but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell every thing in
her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma was obliged to
fancy what she liked; but she could never believe that in the same situation
she should not have discovered the truth. Harriet had no penetration. She
had been sat isfied to hear and believe just what Mrs. Goddard chose to tell
her; and looked no farther.
Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls, and the affairs of the school
in general, formed naturally a great part of her conversation, —and but for
her acquaintance with the Martins of Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been
the whole. But the Martins occupied her thoughts a good deal: she had spent
two very happy months with them, and now loved to talk of the pleasures of
her visit, and describe the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma
encouraged her talkativeness,—amused by such a picture of another set of
beings, and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so
much exultation of Mrs. Martin’s having “two parlours, two very good
parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard’s drawing-
room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived five-and-twenty years
with her; and of their having eight cows, two of them Alderneys, and one a
little Welsh cow, a very pretty little Welsh cow, indeed; and of Mrs. Martin’s
saying, as she was so fond of it, it should be called her cow; and of their
having a very handsome summer-house in their garden, where some day
next year they were all to drink tea,—a very handsome summer-house, large
enough to hold a dozen people.”
For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate
cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings arose.
She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and daughter, a
son and son’s wife, who all lived together; but when it appeared that the Mr.
Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was always mentioned with
approbation for his great good-nature in doing something or other, was a
single man; that there was no young Mrs. Martin, no wife in the case; she
did suspect danger to her poor little friend from all this hospitality and
kindness,—and that if she were not taken care of, she might be required to
sink herself for ever.
With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and
meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin,—and
there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to speak of the
share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening games; and
dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and obliging. “He
had gone three miles round one day, in order to bring her some walnuts,
because she had said how fond she was of them,—and in every thing else
he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd’s son into the parlour one
night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing
a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood every
thing. He had a very fine flock; and, while she was with them, he had been
bid more for his wool than any body in the country. She believed every
body spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs.
Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said it), that it
was impossible for any body to be a better son; and therefore she was sure
whenever he married he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted
him to marry. She was in no hurry at all.”
“Well done, Mrs. Martin!” thought Emma. “You know what you are
about.”
“And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send
Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose: the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever
seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three
teachers, Miss Nach, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with
her.”
“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his
own business. He does not read?”
“Oh, yes!—that is, no—I do not know—but I believe he has read a good
deal—but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the Agricultural
Reports, and some other books that lie in one of the window seats—but he
reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to
cards, he would read something aloud out of the Elegant Extracts, very
entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of Wakefield. He never read
the Romance of the Forest, nor the Children of the Abbey.1 He had never
heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined to get
them now as soon as ever he can.”
The next question was,—
“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?”
“Oh! not handsome—not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at
first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know, after a
time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and then,
and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston. He has
passed you very often.”
“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having
any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, is
the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are
precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. A
degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; I might
hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But a farmer can
need none of my help, and is therefore, in one sense, as much above my
notice, as in every other he is below it.”
“To be sure. Oh, yes, it is not likely you should ever have observed him;
but he knows you very well, indeed—I mean by sight.”
“I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know,
indeed, that he is so; and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine his
age to be?”
“He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the 23d:
just a fortnight and a day’s difference; which is very odd.”
“Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is perfectly
right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they are, and if
she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably repent it. Six
years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young woman in the same
rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very desirable.”
“Six years hence! dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old.”
“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not
born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely to
make—cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he
might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family
property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and so forth;
and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in time, it is next
to impossible that he should have realised any thing yet.”
“To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no in-
doors man—else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks of
taking a boy another year.”
“I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does marry,—
I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife; for though his sisters, from a
superior education, are not to be altogether objected to, it does not follow
that he might marry any body at all fit for you to notice. The misfortune of
your birth ought to make you particularly careful as to your associates.
There can be no doubt of your being a gentleman’s daughter, and you must
support your claim to that station by every thing within your own power, or
there will be plenty of people who would take pleasure in degrading you.
“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield, and you
are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any body can
do.”
“You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would
have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent even of
Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently well
connected,—and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd
acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say, that if you should still be in
this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn in by
your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, who will
probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education.”
“To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body
but what had had some education, and been very well brought up. However,
I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours,—and I am sure I shall not
wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great regard for
the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very sorry to give
them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But if he marries a very
ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not visit her, if I can help it.”
Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no
alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but
she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious
difficulty on Harriet’s side to oppose any friendly arrangement of her own.
They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the
Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at her,
looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was not
sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few yards
forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye sufficiently
acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very neat, and he
looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no other advantage;
and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen, she thought he must
lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet’s inclination. Harriet was not
insensible of manner; she had voluntarily noticed her father’s gentleness
with admiration as well as wonder. Mr. Martin looked as if he did not know
what manner was.
They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not
be kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face,
and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to
compose.
“Only think of our happening to meet him! How very odd! It was quite a
chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not think
we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls most
days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet. He was so
busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it, but he goes
again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well, Miss
Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him? Do
you think him so very plain?”
“He is very plain, undoubtedly, remarkably plain; but that is nothing,
compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect much,
and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so very
clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or
two nearer gentility.”
“To be sure,” said Harriet, in a mortified voice, “he is not so genteel as
real gentlemen.”
“I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been
repeatedly in the company of some, such very real gentlemen, that you must
yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield, you have
had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I should be
surprised if, after seeing them, you could be in company with Mr. Martin
again without perceiving him to be a very inferior creature,—and rather
wondering at yourself for having ever thought him at all agreeable before.
Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not you struck? I am sure you
must have been struck by his awkward look and abrupt manner; and the
uncouthness of a voice, which I heard to be wholly unmodulated as I stood
here.”
“Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and
way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But Mr.
Knightley is so very fine a man!”
“Mr. Knightley’s air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to compare
Mr. Martin with him. You might not see one in a hundred, with gentleman
so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the only gentleman you
have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston and Mr. Elton?
Compare Mr. Martin with either of them. Compare their manner of carrying
themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent. You must see the
difference.”
“Oh, yes, there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old man.
Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty.”
“Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person
grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be
bad,—the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or
awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later age.
Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr. Weston’s
time of life?”
“There is no saying, indeed,” replied Harriet, rather solemnly.
“But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross,
vulgar farmer,—totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of nothing
but profit and loss.”
“Will he, indeed? that will be very bad.”
“How much his business engrosses him already, is very plain from the
circumstance of his forgetting to enquire for the book you recommended.
He was a great deal too full of the market to think of anything else,—which
is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to do with books?
And I have no doubt that he will thrive and be a very rich man in time,—
and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb us.”
“I wonder he did not remember the book,” was all Harriet’s answer, and
spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be
safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her next
beginning was,—
“In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton’s manners are superior to Mr.
Knightley’s or Mr. Weston’s. They have more gentleness. They might be
more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness, almost a
bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in him, because there is so
much good humour with it—but that would not do to be copied. Neither
would Mr. Knightley’s downright, decided, commanding sort of manner-
though it suits him very well: his figure, and look, and situation in life seem
to allow it; but if any young man were to set about copying him, he would
not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think a young man might be very safely
recommended to take Mr. Elton as a model. Mr. Elton is good humoured,
cheerful, obliging, and gentle. He seems to me to be grown particularly
gentle of late. I do not know whether he had any design of ingratiating
himself with either of us, Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me
that his manners are softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it
must be to please you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?”
She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from
Mr. Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and
said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable.
Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young
farmer out of Harriet’s head. She thought it would be an excellent match;
and only too palpably desirable, natural and probable, for her to have much
merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body else must think of
and predict. It was not likely, however, that any body should have equalled
her in the date of the plan, as it had entered her brain during the very first
evening of Harriet’s coming to Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the
greater was her sense of its expediency. Mr. Elton’s situation was most
suitable, quite the gentleman himself and without low connections; at the
same time not of any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of
Harriet. He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very
sufficient income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he
was known to have some independent property; and she thought very highly
of him as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without
any deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world.
She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful girl,
which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was foundation
enough on his side; and on Harriet’s there could be little doubt that the idea
of being preferred by him would have all the usual weight and efficacy. And
he was really a very pleasing young man, a young man whom any woman
not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very handsome; his person much
admired in general, though not by her, there being a want of elegance of
feature which she could not dispense with: but the girl who could be
gratified by a Robert Martin’s riding about the country to get walnuts for
her might very well be conquered by Mr. Elton’s admiration.
