by Jane Austen
“That will not be for my happiness, I an sure. If my opinions are wrong, I must correct them; if they are above my situation, I must endeavour to conceal them; but I doubt whether ridicule — Has Penelope much wit?”
“Yes; she has great spirits, and never cares what she says.”
“Margaret is more gentle, I imagine?”
“Yes; especially in company. She is all gentleness and mildness when anybody is by; but she is a little fretful and perverse among ourselves. Poor creature! She is possessed with the notion of Tom Musgrave’s being more seriously in love with her than he ever was with anybody else, and is always expecting him to come to the point. This is the second time within this twelvemonth that she has gone to spend a month with Robert and Jane on purpose to egg him on by her absence; but I am sure she is mistaken, and that he will no more follow her to Croydon now than he did last March. He will never marry unless he can marry somebody very great, — Miss Osborne, perhaps, or something in that style.”
“Your account of this Tom Musgrave, Elizabeth, gives me very little inclination for his acquaintance.”
“You are afraid of him; I do not wonder at you.”
“No, indeed; I dislike and despise him.”
“Dislike and despise Tom Musgrave! No, that you never can. I defy you not to be delighted with him if he takes notice of you. I hope he will dance with you; and I dare say he will, unless the Osbornes come with a large party, and then he will not speak to anybody else.”
“He seems to have most engaging manners!” said Emma. “Well, we shall see how irresistible Mr. Tom Musgrave and I find each other. I suppose I shall know him as soon as I enter the ball-room; he must carry some of his charm in his face.”
“You will not find him in the ball-room, I can tell you; you will go early, that Mrs. Edwards may get a good place by the fire, and he never comes till late; if the Osbornes are coming, he will wait in the passage and come in with them. I should like to look in upon you, Emma. If it was but a good day with my father, I would wrap myself up, and James should drive me over as soon as I had made tea for him; and I should be with you by the time the dancing began.”
“What! Would you come late at night in this chair?”
“To be sure I would. There, I said you were very refined, and that’s an instance of it.”
Emma for a moment made no answer. At last she said, —
“I wish, Elizabeth, you had not made a point of my going to this ball; I wish you were going instead of me. Your pleasure would be greater than mine. I am a stranger here, and know nobody but the Edwardses; my enjoyment, therefore, must be very doubtful. Yours, among all your acquaintance, would be certain. It is not too late to change. Very little apology could be requisite to the Edwardses, who must be more glad of your company than of mine, and I should most readily return to my father; and should not be at all afraid to drive this quiet old creature home. Your clothes I would undertake to find means of sending to you.”
“My dearest Emma,” cried Elizabeth, warmly, “do you think I would do such a thing? Not for the universe! But I shall never forget your good-nature in proposing it. You must have a sweet temper indeed! I never met with anything like it! And would you really give up the ball that I might be able to go to it? Believe me, Emma, I am not so selfish as that comes to. No; though I am nine years older than you are, I would not be the means of keeping you from being seen. You are very pretty, and it would be very hard that you should not have as fair a chance as we have all had to make your fortune. No, Emma, whoever stays at home this winter, it sha’n’t be you. I am sure I should never have forgiven the person who kept me from a ball at nineteen.”
Emma expressed her gratitude, and for a few minutes they jogged on in silence. Elizabeth first spoke: —
“You will take notice who Mary Edwards dances with?”
“I will remember her partners, if I can; but you know they will be all strangers to me.”
“Only observe whether she dances with Captain Hunter more than once, — I have my fears in that quarter. Not that her father or mother like officers; but if she does, you know, it is all over with poor Sam. And I have promised to write him word who she dances with.”
“Is Sam attached to Miss Edwards?”
“Did not you know that?”
“How should I know it? How should I know in Shropshire what is passing of that nature in Surrey? It is not likely that circumstances of such delicacy should have made any part of the scanty communication which passed between you and me for the last fourteen years.”
“I wonder I never mentioned it when I wrote. Since you have been at home, I have been so busy with my poor father and our great wash that I have had no leisure to tell you anything; but, indeed, I concluded you knew it all. He has been very much in love with her these two years, and it is a great disappointment to him that he cannot always get away to our balls; but Mr. Curtis won’t often spare him, and just now it is a sickly time at Guildford.”
“Do you suppose Miss Edwards inclined to like him?”
“I am afraid not: you know she is an only child, and will have at least ten thousand pounds.”
“But still she may like our brother.”
“Oh, no! The Edwards look much higher. Her father and mother would never consent to it. Sam is only a surgeon, you know. Sometimes I think she does like him. But Mary Edwards is rather prim and reserved; I do not always know what she would be at.”
“Unless Sam feels on sure grounds with the lady herself, it seems a pity to me that he should be encouraged to think of her at all.”
“A young man must think of somebody,” said Elizabeth, “and why should not he be as lucky as Robert, who has got a good wife and six thousand pounds?”
“We must not all expect to be individually lucky,” replied Emma. “The luck of one member of a family is luck to all.”
“Mine is all to come, I am sure,” said Elizabeth, giving another sigh to the remembrance of Purvis. “I have been unlucky enough; and I cannot say much for you, as my aunt married again so foolishly. Well, you will have a good ball, I daresay. The next turning will bring us to the turnpike: you may see the church-tower over the hedge, and the White Hart is close by it. I shall long to know what you think of Tom Musgrave.”
Such were the last audible sounds of Miss Watson’s voice, before they passed through the turnpike-gate, and entered on the pitching of the town, the jumbling and noise of which made farther conversation most thoroughly undesirable. The old mare trotted heavily on, wanting no direction of the reins to take the right turning, and making only one blunder, in proposing to stop at the milliner’s before she drew up towards Mr. Edwards’ door. Mr. Edwards lived in the best house in the street, and the best in the place, if Mr. Tomlinson, the banker, might be indulged in calling his newly erected house at the end of the town, with a shrubbery and sweep, in the country.
Mr. Edwards’ house was higher than most of its neighbours, with four windows on each side the door, the windows guarded by posts and chains, and the door approached by a flight of stone steps.
“Here we are,” said Elizabeth, as the carriage ceased moving, “safely arrived, and by the market clock we have been only five-and-thirty minutes coming; which I think is doing pretty well, though it would be nothing for Penelope. Is not it a nice town? The Edwards have a noble house, you see, and they live quite in style. The door will be opened by a man in livery, with a powdered head, I can tell you.”
Emma had seen the Edwardses only one morning at Stanton; they were therefore all but strangers to her; and though her spirits were by no means insensible to the expected joys of the evening, she felt a little uncomfortable in the thought of all that was to precede them. Her conversation with Elizabeth, too, giving her some very unpleasant feelings with respect to her own family, had made her more open to disagreeable impressions from any other cause, and increased her sense of the awkwardness of rushing into intimacy on so slight an acquaintance.
There was nothing i
n the manner of Mrs. or Miss Edwards to give immediate change to these ideas. The mother, though a very friendly woman, had a reserved air, and a great deal of formal civility; and the daughter, a genteel-looking girl of twenty-two, with her hair in papers, seemed very naturally to have caught something of the style of her mother, who had brought her up. Emma was soon left to know what they could be, by Elizabeth’s being obliged to hurry away; and some very languid remarks on the probable brilliancy of the ball were all that broke, at intervals, a silence of half an hour, before they were joined by the master of the house. Mr. Edwards had a much easier and more communicative air than the ladies of the family; he was fresh from the street, and he came ready to tell whatever might interest. After a cordial reception of Emma, he turned to his daughter with, —
“Well, Mary, I bring you good news: the Osbornes will certainly be at the ball tonight. Horses for two carriages are ordered from the White Hart to be at Osborne Castle by nine.”
“I am glad of it,” observed Mrs. Edwards, “because their coming gives a credit to our assembly. The Osbornes being known to have been at the first ball, will dispose a great many people to attend the second. It is more than they deserve; for in fact, they add nothing to the pleasure of the evening: they come so late and go so early; but great people have always their charm.”
Mr. Edwards proceeded to relate every other little article of news which his morning’s lounge had supplied him with, and they chatted with greater briskness, till Mrs. Edwards’ moment for dressing arrived, and the young ladies were carefully recommended to lose no time. Emma was shown to a very comfortable apartment, and as soon as Mrs. Edwards’ civilities could leave her to herself, the happy occupation, the first bliss of a ball, began. The girls, dressing in some measure together, grew unavoidably better acquainted. Emma found in Miss Edwards the show of good sense, a modest unpretending mind, and a great wish of obliging; and when they returned to the parlour where Mrs. Edwards was sitting, respectably attired in one of the two satin gowns which went through the winter, and a new cap from the milliner’s, they entered it with much easier feelings and more natural smiles than they had taken away. Their dress was now to be examined: Mrs. Edwards acknowledged herself too old-fashioned to approve of every modern extravagance, however sanctioned; and though complacently viewing her daughter’s good looks, would give but a qualified admiration; and Mr. Edwards, not less satisfied with Mary, paid some compliments of good-humoured gallantry to Emma at her expense. The discussion led to more intimate remarks, and Miss Edwards gently asked Emma if she were not often reckoned very like her youngest brother. Emma thought she could perceive a faint blush accompany the question, and there seemed something still more suspicious in the manner in which Mr. Edwards took up the subject.
“You are paying Miss Emma no great compliment, I think, Mary,” said he, hastily. “Mr. Sam Watson is a very good sort of young man, and I dare say a very clever surgeon; but his complexion has been rather too much exposed to all weathers to make a likeness to him very flattering.”
Mary apologised, in some confusion, —
“She had not thought a strong likeness at all incompatible with very different degrees of beauty. There might be resemblance in countenance, and the complexion and even the features be very unlike.”
“I know nothing of my brother’s beauty,” said Emma, “for I have not seen him since he was seven years old; but my father reckons us alike.”
“Mr. Watson!” cried Mr. Edwards; “well, you astonish me. There is not the least likeness in the world; your brother’s eyes are grey, yours are brown; he has a long face and a wide mouth. My dear, do you perceive the least resemblance?”
“Not the least. Miss Emma Watson puts me very much in mind of her eldest sister, and sometimes I see a look of Miss Penelope, and once or twice there has been a glance of Mr. Robert, but I cannot perceive any likeness to Mr. Samuel.”
“I see the likeness between her and Miss Watson,” replied Mr. Edwards, “very strongly, but I am not sensible of the others. I do not much think she is like any of the family but Miss Watson; but I am very sure there is no resemblance between her and Sam.”
This matter was settled, and they went to dinner.
“Your father, Miss Emma, is one of my oldest friends,” said Mr. Edwards, as he helped her to wine, when they were drawn round the fire to enjoy their dessert. “We must drink to his better health. It is a great concern to me, I assure you, that he should be such an invalid. I know nobody who likes a game of cards, in a social way, better than he does, and very few people that play a fairer rubber. It is a thousand pities that he should be so deprived of the pleasure. For now we have a quiet little Whist Club, that meets three times a week at the White Hart; and if he could but have his health, how much he would enjoy it!”
“I dare say he would, sir; and I wish, with all my heart, he were equal to it.”
“Your club would be better fitted for an invalid,” said Mrs. Edwards, “if you did not keep it up so late.”
This was an old grievance.
“So late, my dear! What are you talking of?” cried the husband, with sturdy pleasantry. “We are always at home before midnight. They would laugh at Osborne Castle to hear you call that late; they are but just rising from dinner at midnight.”
“That is nothing to the purpose,” retorted the lady, calmly. “The Osbornes are to be no rule for us. You had better meet every night, and break up two hours sooner.”
So far the subject was very often carried; but Mr. and Mrs. Edwards were so wise as never to pass that point; and Mr. Edwards now turned to something else. He had lived long enough in the idleness of a town to become a little of a gossip, and having some anxiety to know more of the circumstances of his young guest than had yet reached him, he began with, —
“I think, Miss Emma, I remember your aunt very well, about thirty years ago; I am pretty sure I danced with her in the old rooms at Bath, the year before I married. She was a very fine woman then; but like other people, I suppose, she is grown somewhat older since that time. I hope she is likely to be happy in her second choice.”
“I hope so; I believe so, sir,” said Emma, in some agitation.
“Mr. Turner had not been dead a great while, I think?”
“About two years, sir.”
“I forget what her name is now.”
“O’Brien.”
“Irish! ah, I remember; and she is gone to settle in Ireland. I do wonder that you should not wish to go with her into that country, Miss Emma; but it must be a great deprivation to her, poor lady!, after bringing you up like a child of her own.”
“I was not so ungrateful, sir,” said Emma, warmly, “as to wish to be anywhere but with her. It did not suit them, it did not suit Captain O’Brien that I should be of the party.”
“Captain!” repeated Mrs. Edwards. “The gentleman is in the army then?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Aye, there is nothing like your officers for captivating the ladies, young or old. There is no resisting a cockade, my dear.”
“I hope there is,” said Mrs. Edwards, gravely, with a quick glance at her daughter; and Emma had just recovered from her own perturbation in time to see a blush on Miss Edwards’ cheek, and in remembering what Elizabeth had said of Captain Hunter, to wonder and waver between his influence and her brother’s.
“Elderly ladies should be careful how they make a second choice,” observed Mr. Edwards.
“Carefulness — discretion should not be confined to elderly ladies or to a second choice,” added his wife. “They are quite as necessary to young ladies in their first.”
“Rather more so, my dear,” replied he; “because young ladies are likely to feel the effects of it longer. When an old lady plays the fool, it is not in the course of nature that she should suffer from it many years.”
Emma drew her hand across her eyes; and Mrs. Edwards, on perceiving it, changed the subject to one of less anxiety to all.
With nothin
g to do but to expect the hour of setting off, the afternoon was long to the two young ladies; and though Miss Edwards was rather discomposed at the very early hour which her mother always fixed for going, that early hour itself was watched for with some eagerness.
The entrance of the tea-things at seven o’clock was some relief; and luckily Mr. and Mrs. Edwards always drank a dish extraordinary and ate an additional muffin when they were going to sit up late, which lengthened the ceremony almost to the wished-for moment.
At a little before eight, the Tomlinsons’ carriage was heard to go by — which was the constant signal for Mrs. Edwards to order hers to the door; and in a very few minutes the party were transported from the quiet and warmth of a snug parlour to the bustle, noise, and draughts of air of the broad entrance passage of an inn. Mrs. Edwards, carefully guarding her own dress, while she attended with yet greater solicitude to the proper security of her young charges’ shoulders and throats, led the way up the wide staircase, while no sound of a ball but the first scrape of one violin blessed the ears of her followers; and Miss Edwards, on hazarding the anxious inquiry of whether there were many people come yet, was told by the waiter, as she knew she should, that “Mr. Tomlinson’s family were in the room.”
In passing along a short gallery to the assembly-room, brilliant in lights before them, they were accosted by a young man in a morning-dress and boots, who was standing in the doorway of a bed-chamber, apparently on purpose to see them go by.
“Ah! Mrs. Edwards, how do you do? How do you do, Miss Edwards?” he cried, with an easy air. “You are determined to be in good time, I see, as usual. The candles are but this moment lit.”
“I like to get a good seat by the fire, you know, Mr. Musgrave,” replied Mrs. Edwards.
“I am this moment going to dress,” said he. “I am waiting for my stupid fellow. We shall have a famous ball. The Osbornes are certainly coming; you may depend upon that, for I was with Lord Osborne this morning.”