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Authors: Emma Tennant

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Mrs. Weston had been acquainted with Mr. Knightley for close on twenty years; together they had witnessed the growing of Emma; and in conjunction had delighted in the developing maturity of that most wonderful specimen, a flower of young English womanhood without the want of riches, intelligence or looks. Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley were, in their own minds and without the slightest doubt, the cultivators and gardeners of Emma. For all that the past governess had found herself sad to miss her pupil – as she still did sometimes think her – on this occasion, there was nonetheless the comfort of comparing with Mr. Knightley the progress made by their protégée. He had frequently declared himself satisfied with the bride Emma had become, if he mourned her refusal to remove from Mrs. Hodges any of the responsibilities of cook or housekeeper. Mrs. Weston found Emma also much improved: her sole anxiety lay in the fear she might not propagate, in her own little daughter, the seeds of so faultless a bloom as
Emma. So, once she had comforted herself with the reassurance that Mr. Knightley was not in one of his teasing moods (if he was, she had not seen it), she settled for an exchange on the virtues of the girl she had raised and Mr. Knightley had watched over with care; and, having resigned herself to a lack of the company she liked best in the world, gave all she had to the concerns of Mr. Knightley.

“It grows ever hotter today,” said he; and Mrs. Weston fancied he looked at her closely. “I shall provide lemonade for you, my dear Mrs. Weston, even if my nephews and nieces have guzzled the entire jug, and Mrs. Hodges must be asked for more. You must be fatigued, walking over the fields. And it is a pity you missed Emma. She goes to Miss Bates, to invite that good lady and her niece to this famous dinner here.”

A servant came in, summoned by Mr. Knightley's bell, and lemonade was asked for.

“It is certain,” continued Mr. Knightley, “that Mr. Weston and your good self will be the next recipients of Emma's invitation to Donwell Abbey. I hope you might suggest to her that that will make for a sufficiency of guests – with Miss Bates, naturally; and her mother, for whom Emma has every receipt in readiness. Emma loves to spoil old Mrs. Bates, you know.”

“Indeed!” replied Mrs. Weston, who knew as well as her companion that Emma forgot old Mrs. Bates at
every possible opportunity, and was only reminded by a sense of reproach at herself, of the old lady's existence. It was also known to Mrs. Weston as well as it was to her host that the first reproach came inevitably from Mr. Knightley himself, to his wife; and that she cried in vexation each time it came, at her neglect of the one member of Highbury society who lived in hope of the fricassée of veal – or of a slice of turkey that had not been cooked too far in advance of a Sunday (as happened on so many occasions that she and her daughter were presented with a bird), by reason of their lack of a larder to store it.

“This dinner at Donwell Abbey will more than compensate for past omissions,” said Mrs. Weston. “But I fear Mr. Weston and I must decline your kind invitation, Mr. Knightley. It grieves me very much to say it: I do love to see Emma at the head of the table, a beacon of loveliness indeed!”

“But Emma will not wish to hold the dinner if you are not present,” said Mr. Knightley, frowning. “Can we not settle on a day which is convenient to Randalls and the Abbey together? Surely it must be possible.”

“It is not a question of a day,” said Mrs. Weston, becoming flustered. “We are taken up over the next weeks, Mr. Knightley. The situation was not expected. Please forgive us.”

The lemonade made an entrance; and when the
servant had gone, Mr. Knightley set himself to changing Mrs. Weston's mind. After a few attempts the truth came out, and the good Mrs. Weston, blushing, asked pardon once more at the inconvenience caused at the Abbey by the arrival of not one but two young men, at her husband's house.

“Two, Mrs. Weston? It is certain the table here would not stretch to such a party.— For they must be invited.— Yet I may ask of my brother that he goes to dine at the Crown that evening, I suppose.— Yes, my dear madam, I do credit you with solving our little problem most magnificently!”

Mrs. Weston, not for the first time since the beginning of her long acquaintanceship with Mr. Knightley, found it in her to criticise him. He was dogmatic; petty; she did not wish her Emma to be subjected to further strictures on the capacity of the dining-table at Donwell Abbey. He has been too long a bachelor, thought Mrs. Weston. It did not occur to her that the aim of the worthy squire was simply to prevent John Knightley meeting Miss Bates's niece. There was no reason for her to suppose it. Though she was soon to come to that realisation.

“So who are these two young men?” continued Mr. Knightley, and this time with a magisterial air. “I can guess one, certainly. He is Mr. Weston's son Frank Churchill. Here is a good reason why Miss Bates cannot bring along her niece Miss Fairfax to dinner on the same
evening. It would be most awkward, would it not, Mrs. Weston, for a young woman who has been jilted to come up against her jilt, at our table? Emma cannot have thought carefully before planning out this occasion. She cannot!”

“The other is Frank's brother-in-law, Captain Brocklehurst,” said Mrs. Weston. “It was a decision made at the very last minute, to come down from Yorkshire and visit the family – the other part of the family – into which his sister has married. I am not at all sure there are towels in the linen cupboard to cover his stay,” added Mrs. Weston; and her doing so might have indicated to a more sensible listener the anxieties entertained at this costly and unforeseen visit. Mr. Knightley, however, remained in his wing chair, slightly tilted back, with fingertips pressed together; and for a moment Mrs. Weston saw his lawyer brother in his pose, and in the judicial manner in which he appeared to examine the information she had been brought to offer him.

“Captain Brocklehurst, eh?” As if tired of the subject, Mr. Knightley swung forward and rose to his feet. Mrs. Weston was always to see him as smaller than she remembered, in his boots. But his position, and the gravity with which he conducted himself, made up for the slight deficiency of stature.

“Let us permit this dinner to work out its own problems,” said he; “and accept my sincere apologies,
Mrs. Weston, for airing my concerns over Emma – for this is what they are.— I wish to hear your opinions on her happiness; on the school she both tends and neglects; and on the important matter of whether you find her dabbling in making matches again; for she gave her word she would do no such thing!”

But Mrs. Weston, who now understood the purpose of Mr. Knightley's attitude towards her, would only say she found Emma's efforts with the education of her nephews and nieces admirable in the extreme, while no ostensible sign of a return to matchmaking had been noted by Mrs. Weston in the course of earlier conversations.

“Emma wishes to introduce her brother to the neighbourhood, that is all,” said Mrs. Weston; and her tone was soothing. “She hopes one day, I have no doubt, that he will find happiness in love, as she has—”

“Has she, Mrs. Weston?” said Mr. Knightley, and his eagerness, being so evident to Mrs. Weston, caused her to look away. “I proclaimed, did I not, as many as five years ago, that I wished to see Emma in love. Do you see this, Mrs. Weston? Speak freely, I implore you!”

Mrs. Weston, who made much of picking up her bag and searching for her spectacles on the table, was at last ready to give a reply. “Oh I do, Mr. Knightley. Emma is very much in love!”

And with these words Mrs. Weston excused herself;
she had two young men at Randalls, and the butcher's boy had yet to come, when she set out.—

Mr. Knightley, escorting her to the door, could be perceived to return to his chair and sit a long time very still.

Chapter 6

Pray take care, Mrs. Knightley, ours is rather a dark staircase – Oh, it is too kind … a hindquarter of pork – I do not know what my mother will say – take care I do beg of you, that you do not hit your foot at the turning. I am quite at a loss – my mother – you will see she is a trifle unwell, but she will be restored by the pork! Even more succulent than the meat dear Mr. Woodhouse would send down.— Oh, you are all too kind.— I do not mean to disparage your late father, Oh, goodness no. Very.”

Emma could not walk into Miss Bates's little sitting-room without smiling at the memory of Mr. Knightley calling up to the windows, on the occasion of delivering a bushel of apples to daughter and mother. She had
wondered since whether she had come to recognise her feelings for him on that day. For Mr. Knightley liked to keep his charity a secret; and Emma had been unable to prevent herself from comparing it with her own activities in visiting the poor, all of which were well known in the village.

Mrs. Bates slumbered by the fireplace; but soon woke when Emma's presence was announced. There was no sign of Jane Fairfax, however, and questions as to her whereabouts were met by Miss Bates with some show of hesitation.

“I do not believe there are families as distinguished as Mrs. Smallridge's family in all of England. Only the Sucklings and the Bragges come anywhere near her … well perhaps the Sucklings can be called superior, if only by reason of the extent of their park; but Mrs. Elton assures me Jane is so very happy. So very. In a house which is only four miles from Mrs. Elton's old home. Maple Grove. And on the occasion of Mrs. Elton's going for a visit, she saw dear Jane several times! Can you imagine? Jane most satisfied. Candles in the schoolroom. She wants for nothing, dear Mrs. Knightley, I can assure you. Last year she was in Norfolk in the summer, with the three children. Three little girls. Is it not delightful? This year she has been at Weymouth; and all arranged with an idea to her happiness, for Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are at Weymouth, you know, and Jane's
great friends Mr. and Mrs. Dixon visiting them there. Can you give credence to anything so agreeable as that?”

“How shall we salt the pork?” enquired Mrs. Bates from her seat by the fire. The good lady had now placed her spectacles on her nose, to examine the hindquarter; and after pronouncing it excellent, she fell off to sleep again.

“My poor mother does not enjoy this heat,” said Miss Bates. “She is for ever. And you are. It is so kind of you. Indeed.”

Emma saw that Miss Bates was more confused than usual, today; she felt with a pang of self-reproach that she had not visited her in a long time. Mr. Woodhouse would also have gone more often to see that Miss Bates and her mother were in good health. Now, from the appearance and speech of Miss Bates, her mother was declining sadly, and the daughter was distraught by the imminent loss of a loved parent.

“I trust Mrs. Bates is well,” said Emma, who was at last prevailed upon to sit down, and was able to look around her. The pianoforte was gone; she saw this with a pang. Poor Jane Fairfax! She would not play for her own amusement again.

“Mother is doing excellently well for her years,” replied Miss Bates. “You do not ask in any spirit of true concern, do you, dear Mrs. Knightley?”

Before Emma – abashed by this sudden revelation on Miss Bates's part of the sad truth of the long neglect on the part of the mistress of Donwell Abbey of the two ladies most esteemed in Highbury (their poverty, constant kindnesses to all and inability to cause harm to anyone had earned them this accolade) – could discover a way to evade the directness of Miss Bates's question, the stream of utterance went on.

“You are cordially invited to take tea or dinner with us. Yes. Mr. Knightley and yourself. You will, I hope, Mrs. Knightley. It would be so great an honour. Yes. Yes. And Mr. and Mrs. Cole have asked a hundred times. No, maybe it is five or six times, if they may invite you. They do not dare approach Donwell Abbey. ‘But Mrs. Knightley – dear Emma – is a great friend of mine,' I said to Mrs. Cole. ‘I shall ask her to meet you here. Then you may go ahead with your invitation.' As for Mr. Knightley, he keeps my mother in apples, you know. Oh yes, even if he has to go without, he ensures we are stuffed. Yes. But Jane is not a great apple-eater and we do not need such quantities. They rot and they stink – oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Knightley – but we are in such close quarters here—”

“Where is Miss Fairfax?” cried Emma, for she was determined to insert a word while Miss Bates paused for breath. “Mrs. Weston informed us she came here. We assumed she would stay in her old home, that her
situation with Mrs. Smallridge would permit it, if only for a short time. Is she delayed at Weymouth still?”

“Delayed?” answered Miss Bates. “If only she were, dear Emma – if I may, my dear, if I may. No, Jane is out walking. It is most unfortunate. No sooner has she arrived here – she brings a friend, you know.”

“A friend?” said Emma, frowning. She saw her numbers for the dinner grow too great for Mr. Knightley to permit it to take place. There would be an altercation over the walnut table in the morning-room, which Mr. Knightley's mother had sat at, with her sewing. For some reason this piece could not be moved to the dining-room without a great deal of fuss on the part of Mr. Knightley.

“Jane does not stay here,” said Miss Bates. “She is with Mrs. Elton. The good vicar's wife has Mrs. Smallridge as guest. Mrs. Smallridge insists on Jane staying with the children. There. There. It cannot be helped. We are so very fortunate, my dear.”

Emma was appalled at this lack of kindness towards a poor governess. In her agitation she rose, and with the suddenness of her movement, the floorboards of the old house trembled, causing Mrs. Bates to wake and her spectacles to slide from footstool to floor.

“Please forgive me!” And, retrieving the spectacles Emma noted with horror that the frames had cracked and were in need of putting together again before they
could be of use to the wearer. “Oh, Mrs. Bates, I will ensure these are seen to as soon as I possibly can!” cried Emma.

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