Kabanata Kabanata 3 · 第3章

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. 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 chilblains 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,

shewing 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 connexions. 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 visitors 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 visitors 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!