Chapter 3 — 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. 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

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.”

little

very

half

small

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!