Emma

CHAPTER I

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and

happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of

existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very

little to distress or vex her.

She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate,

indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage,

been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had

died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance

of her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman

as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.

Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse’s family, less as a

governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly

of Emma. Between them it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even

before Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess,

the mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any

restraint; and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they

had been living together as friend and friend very mutually attached,

and Emma doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s

judgment, but directed chiefly by her own.

The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having

rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too

well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to

her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so

unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with

her.

Sorrow came—a gentle sorrow—but not at all in the shape of any

disagreeable consciousness.—Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor’s

loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this

beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any

continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father

and herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to

cheer a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after

dinner, as usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she

had lost.

The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was

a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and

pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with

what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and

promoted the match; but it was a black morning’s work for her. The want

of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her

past kindness—the kindness, the affection of sixteen years—how she had

taught and how she had played with her from five years old—how she had

devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health—and how nursed

her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of

gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven years,

the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed

Isabella’s marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a

dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such

as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing

all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and

peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of

hers—one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had

such an affection for her as could never find fault.

How was she to bear the change?—It was true that her friend was going

only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the

difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a

Miss Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and

domestic, she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual

solitude. She dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her.

He could not meet her in conversation, rational or playful.

The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had

not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits;

for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind

or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though

everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable

temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.

Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being

settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily

reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled

through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from

Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house,

and give her pleasant society again.

Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town,

to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and

name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses were

first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many

acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but

not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for

even half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but

sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke,

and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He

was a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was

used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind.

Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was

by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter’s marrying, nor could

ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a

match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor

too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able

to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he

was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for

herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she

had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and

chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but

when tea came, it was impossible for him not to say exactly as he had

said at dinner,

“Poor Miss Taylor!—I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that

Mr. Weston ever thought of her!”

“I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such a

good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves a

good wife;—and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for

ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her

own?”

“A house of her own!—But where is the advantage of a house of her own?

This is three times as large.—And you have never any odd humours, my

dear.”

“How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!—We

shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding

visit very soon.”

“My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could

not walk half so far.”

“No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage,

to be sure.”

“The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a

little way;—and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our

visit?”

“They are to be put into Mr. Weston’s stable, papa. You know we have

settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last

night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going

to Randalls, because of his daughter’s being housemaid there. I only

doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing,

papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you

mentioned her—James is so obliged to you!”

“I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not

have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am

sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken

girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always

curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you

have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock

of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an

excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor

to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes

over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will

be able to tell her how we all are.”

Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and

hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably through

the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The

backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards

walked in and made it unnecessary.

Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not

only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly

connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived

about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome,

and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their

mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after

some days’ absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were

well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated Mr.

Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which

always did him good; and his many inquiries after “poor Isabella” and

her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr.

Woodhouse gratefully observed, “It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley,

to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must

have had a shocking walk.”

“Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I

must draw back from your great fire.”

“But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not

catch cold.”

“Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them.”

“Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain

here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at

breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding.”

“By the bye—I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what

sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my

congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you

all behave? Who cried most?”

“Ah! poor Miss Taylor! ’Tis a sad business.”

“Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say

‘poor Miss Taylor.’ I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it

comes to the question of dependence or independence!—At any rate, it

must be better to have only one to please than two.”

“Especially when _one_ of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome

creature!” said Emma playfully. “That is what you have in your head, I

know—and what you would certainly say if my father were not by.”

“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with

a sigh. “I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”

“My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean _you_, or suppose Mr.

Knightley to mean _you_. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only

myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know—in a

joke—it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another.”

Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults

in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and

though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it

would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him

really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by

every body.

“Emma knows I never flatter her,” said Mr. Knightley, “but I meant no

reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons

to please; she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be

a gainer.”

“Well,” said Emma, willing to let it pass—“you want to hear about the

wedding; and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved

charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks:

not a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that

we were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting

every day.”

“Dear Emma bears every thing so well,” said her father. “But, Mr.

Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am

sure she _will_ miss her more than she thinks for.”

Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. “It is

impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion,” said Mr.

Knightley. “We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could

suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor’s

advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor’s

time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to

her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow

herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor

must be glad to have her so happily married.”

“And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a

very considerable one—that I made the match myself. I made the match,

you know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in

the right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again,

may comfort me for any thing.”

Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, “Ah! my

dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for

whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more

matches.”

“I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for

other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such

success, you know!—Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry

again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who

seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied

either in his business in town or among his friends here, always

acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful—Mr. Weston need not spend

a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr.

Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a

promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the

uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the

subject, but I believed none of it.

“Ever since the day—about four years ago—that Miss Taylor and I met

with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted

away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from

Farmer Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the

match from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this

instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off

match-making.”

“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success,’” said Mr. Knightley.

“Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately

spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring

about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady’s mind! But

if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it,

means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, ‘I

think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were

to marry her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then

afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are

you proud of? You made a lucky guess; and _that_ is all that can be

said.”

“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?—I

pity you.—I thought you cleverer—for, depend upon it a lucky guess is

never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my poor

word ‘success,’ which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so

entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures;

but I think there may be a third—a something between the do-nothing and

the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston’s visits here, and given

many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might

not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield

enough to comprehend that.”

“A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational,

unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their

own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than

good to them, by interference.”

“Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined

Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not

make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one’s family

circle grievously.”

“Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr.

Elton, papa,—I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in

Highbury who deserves him—and he has been here a whole year, and has

fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have

him single any longer—and I thought when he was joining their hands

to-day, he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same

kind office done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is

the only way I have of doing him a service.”

“Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good

young man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew

him any attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day.

That will be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so

kind as to meet him.”

“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley,

laughing, “and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better

thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish

and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a

man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.”