by Jane Austen
George and little Frank had got ahead of the others, running races across the grass towards their home. Charles, however, walked by his mother, holding tightly on to her hand. Looking up, he said, ‘Will Uncle Adam marry Lady Osborne, Mamma?’
‘Good gracious, my dear boy! What put such an idea as that into your head?’
‘Jem said so to Mrs Fisher. He said everybody in the village thinks it will happen.’
‘Charles, I do not like you listening to the gossip of maids and garden-boys. Still less do I like your repeating it. What Uncle Adam and Lady Osborne decide is none of our affair.’
‘Yes, Mamma,’ he said in a subdued tone, but added, after a moment or two, ‘Still, I very much hope that he will not marry her. For if he did so I suppose he would have to go to live at the castle, and we should not be able to run in every day to ask him questions as we do at the vicarage. Then it would be our affair, don’t you think, Mamma?’
‘Hush, child! What will Miss Watson think of us? She will conclude that we do nothing but tattle about our neighbours.’
Chapter 3
On the following day, a Sunday, Emma and Elizabeth were returning together from the service in Stanton Church, which had been conducted by the curate, young Mr Marshall (fortunately by this time old Nanny had recovered sufficiently from her indisposition to be left in charge of Mr Watson), when they were once more surprised by the sound of horse’s hoofs in Parsonage Lane.
‘Not Tom Musgrave again so soon?’ cried Elizabeth piteously. ‘No, no, it cannot be that! Not on a Sunday, surely?’
Emma had her own instantaneous flash of recollection and vain hope, thinking of Mr Howard as he came riding across Osborne Park, and the glow on his countenance as he caught sight of her; but such a notion she knew to be nonsense, for would not Mr Howard at this very moment be concluding his own church service in Wickstead Church, and, furthermore, very likely be on the point of returning to Osborne Castle to take his Sunday roast beef in the company of Lady Osborne and her family? No, no, however often it might recur to plague her, she must endeavour to banish the intrusive image of Mr Howard from her mind.
But now Elizabeth was calling out joyfully: ‘Sam! Dearest Sam! What a charming surprise! We had not at all looked to see you. Not but what,’ checking a little ruefully, ‘our father will be sadly grieved at you for riding this distance on a Sunday – oh me, I fear he will be shocked and sorry that you have done such a thing—’
‘Phoo, phoo, Liza, I daresay he will never regard it,’ replied her brother Sam, throwing his leg forward over the pommel of his saddle and dismounting to give his sister a hearty hug. ‘Chamber-fast as he mostly is, these days, it is odds that my father hardly tells one day from another.’
‘No, there you are quite out, brother, he keeps a strict count of the calendar, and reads the office for each day most steadfastly. Still I am sure he will be very happy to see you, nonetheless. But here you have been ignoring sister Emma, who is, I suppose, the principal reason for your visit.’
‘Emmie? Is this our little Emmie?’ exclaimed Sam, turning to view her. ‘I had taken you for some grand lady from the neighbourhood, you are grown so fashionable and handsome!’ And he swept her a deep bow.
‘Oh, come, Sam!’ said Elizabeth, laughing. ‘She is not grown so grand but that you can give her a kiss.’
‘Indeed I do now begin to recognize the countenance of our little Em,’ said Sam, and followed Elizabeth’s instructions with an affectionate smile and squeeze of Emma’s hand. She, too, began to retrace in him the features of her old playmate. Sam, the younger of her brothers, was the one of whom she had always been particularly fond. Only four years older than she, he had frequently entered into her childish games, carved her spinning-tops, taken her for rambles, and told her stories. When she left the family home to be adopted by her uncle and aunt Turner, she had been especially grieved to part from Sam. He had promised to write to her, and had kept the promise for a considerable number of years very faithfully; but, latterly, as the demands of his medical training and practice made more inroads on his time, the correspondence had dwindled and become less regular.
Now she studied Sam with unaffected pleasure and interest.
He had grown into a personable young man; not handsome, no, but decidedly personable. His hair, medium-fair, was cut quite short in the new fashion. Like his brother Robert and their father, he was of slight build, but a little taller than Robert, compact and muscular, and somewhat tanned as a consequence of many hours spent in the saddle. The features of his face were not striking, but a pair of intelligent lively grey eyes redeemed them, and his expressive countenance was so merry, forthright, and sympathetic that no stranger could help but take a liking to him on the spot. At the moment, however, the merriment was in abeyance. After his fond greeting of both sisters, Sam’s smile began to waver, and he said:
‘I am come to you also for condolences, Liza; the Edwardses won’t allow my suit.’
‘Oh, my dear Sam! I am so very sorry! But,’ said Elizabeth, rather shocked, ‘sure you have not been calling at the Edwardses on such an errand today? On a Sunday? That, of a certainty, won’t have advanced you in their favour.’
‘But what could I do, Liza? I am tied up all the week – out on my rounds fifteen hours a day. It’s as much as I can do to snatch a meal here and there. See how thin I have grown.’ He thumped his chest. ‘Old Master Curtis is failing fast; all the work falls on my shoulders. I thought that fact would have recommended me to Mr Edwards – he can’t say I do not work hard – but it’s of no avail. The Edwardses intend something grander for their Mary than a scrubby surgeon.’
‘Oh, my poor Sam, I feel for you – indeed I do. But I am afraid that is true. Did you see Mary Edwards herself?’
‘No,’ he said bitterly, ‘they would not even let me see her to plead my own case. Do you know, Eliza, does she take an interest in any other man?’
Elizabeth looked doubtfully at Emma.
‘My sister saw her last – three weeks ago, at the Dorking Assembly—’
‘It is true,’ Emma said with reluctance, ‘Miss Edwards danced a great deal on that occasion with a Captain Hunter – she had at least four dances with him – but her parents were not at all pleased with her about this, afterwards. Her mother gave her a great scold for letting herself be surrounded by Red Coats.’
‘Well,’ said Elizabeth hopefully, ‘that means very little. Any young lady’s head may be turned by a red coat. Such a fancy often leads to nothing of lasting importance.’
‘But I did hear two ladies at the ball,’ Emma went on with even more hesitation, ‘who asserted that Mrs Edwards hoped for a match between her daughter and Lord Osborne. It seems the Edwardses are in expectation of an inheritance from some great-uncle which would make their daughter into a very desirable match.’
‘Great heaven!’ cried Elizabeth, aghast. ‘Mary Edwards! An heiress! Emma, you never told me of that.’
‘No, it went clean out of my head until this moment – it meant nothing to me as I was so little acquainted with the persons concerned. And the Edwardses did not tell me themselves.’
‘I suppose that would be Mrs Edwards’ uncle in Plymouth, the merchant; I have heard it said that he is very well-to-do,’ Elizabeth said doubtfully. ‘Oh, my poor Sam! If this is true, I fear that it does put Miss Edwards entirely out of your reach.’
‘But why does Lord Osborne require an heiress?’ asked Emma with great indignation. ‘Surely he has enough money of his own?’
‘Oh, but they say his father, the old lord, was a great waster, and the estates are sadly encumbered,’ Elizabeth told her.
‘But Lady Osborne has ten thousand a year! Jane said so.’
‘Ah, but that is her own money left her by her grandmother – she does not choose to spend it on paying her husband’s debts.’
No, but on attracting the favour of
Mr Howard, thought Emma.
‘Such grand gentry are not always what they seem.’
‘Well, I think it is very unfair!’
‘But, Sam, you have not heard our news!’ cried Elizabeth, recollecting, as they walked towards the stable-yard. ‘Our sister Penelope has just been here, and, what do you think? She is married!’
This piece of intelligence, which came as a complete surprise to Sam, had precisely the effect Elizabeth had hoped, of distracting him from his own melancholy situation and giving a new turn to his thoughts.
‘What?’ he exclaimed. ‘Our sister Penny actually married? She must have been working like a coal-heaver to bring it off, for I saw Robert ten days ago when he came to Guildford on legal business, and he spoke no word of it. Well! I was never so astonished! Are you sure that it is true? It is the most amazing thing!’
‘Yes, perfectly sure, for she was here with her husband. Now they are gone into Northamptonshire, but when they come back they are going to take up residence in this neighbourhood, for they have bought Clissocks.’
This staggered Sam even more.
‘Her husband must be mad! Or else he is as rich as Croesus. Who is he?’
‘A Dr Harding from Chichester.’
‘Why, I know him! He was one of my tutors when I was at medical school. He is as decent an old fellow as ever stepped, and used to be very kindly disposed towards me. This is famous good news. I wonder if he plans to set up a practice in this neighbourhood?’
‘I do not think so,’ said Emma. ‘I am fairly sure that Penelope said he plans to retire from professional work and live as a gentleman of leisure. She said something about investments.’
‘Penny would certainly prefer that. She would not wish a trail of patients to be coming to the house at all hours.’
Mr Watson was delighted to see his younger son, and though he did, as Elizabeth had predicted, gently reprove Sam for making a twenty-mile journey on a Sunday, the pleasure of his son’s company outweighed the disapproval, and the long, hard-working week was accepted as sufficient excuse.
Sam at once entered with great enthusiasm into his father’s scheme for publication of some of his sermons, and said that he considered it an excellent notion.
‘For I am sure, sir, yours are fully as erudite and well constructed as many of these volumes that appear – Cambridge Sermons and Foundations of Old Testament Criticism and the like – and written in far better English too, I’ll be bound.’
Mr Watson even prepared to make one of his rare trips downstairs to eat his cold meat in the dining room with the rest of the family, and they had a pleasant time together exchanging memories of occasions long gone by, in Emma’s early childhood, when they had lived in Hampshire and Mrs Watson had still been alive. Emma, though she had spent happy years with Mr and Mrs Turner, felt all the blessing of being with her true family again (forgetting that three members of it were missing).
After Mr Watson had retired once more to his chamber, Sam said, ‘This is really a capital scheme about the sermons, Lizzie, and I am as grateful as can be to Howard for putting it into my father’s head. For Papa talked to me upstairs, expressing a great deal of anxiety as to what will become of you girls when he is carried off – which, I won’t attempt to conceal from you, may occur at my time. He plans, Emma, to leave you in his Will such moneys as may accrue from the publication of the sermons, since, he says, you have been of such signal help to him—’
‘Oh, Sam!’ cried Elizabeth, turning very pale. ‘Is the end really so certain? So near?’
‘No use trying to wrap things up, sister. My father is very frail, and his heart is in a shocking state. And serious worry about what will happen to his daughters after he is gone don’t help. But this scheme will keep him engaged and in tolerable spirits – it was a rare notion of Howard’s. He said it arose from some suggestion made by Purvis.’
‘Purvis?’
Sam threw a quick but penetrating look at his sister and remarked, ‘That surprises you, but Purvis has always looked up to my father and, I believe, entertained a high regard for several other members of our family. Small wonder if he should have given some consideration to the future of you and your sisters when Papa is gone. And Purvis, I understand, has a cousin who is a bookseller and publisher in Maiden Lane.’
‘I suppose our father’s death is a matter of speculation all over the countryside,’ observed Elizabeth in a choked tone.
‘Ay, indeed; Robert and I were putting our heads together about the future, too, when I saw him last week; Rob could take in two of you, he said, when you are obliged to quit this house – in fact I am quite surprised to find Emmie still here; I had thought Jane proposed to invite her to Croydon . . .’
‘She may have planned to do so,’ said Emma in a dry tone, ‘before she met me, but once having seen me she very quickly changed her mind.’
Sam raised his brows but forbore to comment. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘then it seems my father’s anxieties are well founded. But he hopes – he very strongly hopes – that if his sermons can find a publisher, the moneys arising from that may help to support you two after he is gone.’
Emma and Elizabeth exchanged glances. In this swift eye contact their entire lack of faith in such a providential outcome was expressed.
‘But still,’ said Elizabeth, ‘anything that gives such hope and comfort to our father in his last months must be accounted a blessing.’
‘I only wish,’ fretted Sam, ‘that I could provide an establishment for you girls later on. If I had married Mary – but – two ill-furnished rooms over a funeral parlour in Guildford High Street! It is not to be thought of.’
‘Never mind it, dear Sam! One day you will be Lord Watson of Guildford, Surgeon in Ordinary, or Extraordinary, to His Majesty. Then both Liza and I will keep house for you, and usher in your patients, and make your tea, wearing aprons of silk.’
Shortly after this conversation Sam took his departure, for he had a two-hour ride back to Guildford. He bade an affectionate farewell to both sisters and his father, and urged Elizabeth to send for him at any time without the slightest hesitation if she had any anxiety about Mr Watson.
‘And, Sam,’ said Elizabeth with a quivering lip, ‘try – try not to repine. Try to put Miss Edwards completely out of your thoughts. It is by far the best – the only way – I assure you.’
‘And you should know all about that – hmn?’ He gave her a rueful, kindly smile, and swung himself into the saddle.
‘Sam is by far the best of the whole family,’ sighed Elizabeth, as the sisters stood watching him ride down the hill. ‘And he has the hardest lot of all, I sometimes think.’
Emma was not entirely inclined to agree with the latter sentiment.
‘He works very hard, true; but, at least, he is following his chosen profession. He must have that thought to console him, if he is treated in a slighting way by those who should esteem him. And matters will not always be so. He is able to use his talents. He is so clever, and applies himself to his career with so much energy, that I am sure he will rise high in it.’
‘Dear, dear Sam! Indeed I hope so!’
***
‘Here is a letter to you from Ireland, Emma!’ cried Elizabeth a few days later, after the post boy had splashed up the lane on his muddy pony. ‘Perhaps Aunt O’Brien has changed her mind, and now wishes to request your company after all.’
For one of the things that Sam had said, privily, to Elizabeth during his visit, while Emma sat upstairs with her father, had been, ‘In my opinion, Eliza, by far the best thing for Emma, after my father’s death, would be for Aunt Maria to invite her back again, even if there are to be no expectations of an inheritance in that quarter. With our aunt, Emma must surely stand a better chance of making a respectable match. For Aunt O’Brien is – or was – known as a lady of fortune and intelligence, such as will always gather r
ound her a superior set of friends. Whereas I won’t deny to you, Eliza, that Robert and Jane appear to have conceived quite a strong dislike to poor Emma. Why this should be I won’t pretend to understand; to me she appears a most amiable, taking little thing, good-natured, and not at all lacking in sense and wit. But it seems unlikely that they will make any push to help her. Robert told me that Jane found her overweening and rude and much too set up in her own esteem.’
‘What nonsense!’ cried Elizabeth indignantly. ‘Why, she is the dearest girl in the world, and was perfectly civil to them, particularly to Jane, when they were here, I am positive. But the truth is, Sam, she is far too well-bred for Jane, whose own manners do not stand the comparison. And Robert, of course, never does anything but echo Jane’s opinion.’
‘Well,’ said Sam, ‘all I can say is I do not think she would have a happy time of it if she were obliged to live with Robert and Jane in Croydon. And I cannot like their friends . . . Perhaps Emma might do better with Penelope and her old doctor? By the bye, I shall certainly go to see him as soon as they are returned into this country; I am wondering if he might be able to put me in the way of some better connections.’
‘Oh, Sam, yes indeed, what an excellent notion! Yes, yes, you must certainly do that. Penelope also would be glad, no doubt, to see her brother more advanced in his profession. But, as regards Emma, do you think that she and Penelope would really settle well together? I very much doubt it. They are so different: Emma perfectly candid and forthright in her dealings, while Penelope is so devious – I hesitate to use the word treacherous – but I must confess to you, Sam, I am not thoroughly easy in my mind about her return to this neighbourhood . . .’
‘I wish with all my heart,’ cried Sam, ‘that I could provide a home for you and Emma. Poor Eliza! You make no claim for yourself, but I know how you must feel at the prospect of soon being obliged to quit this home which by your hard work and devotion you have made into such a pleasant haven – and I cannot imagine that you look forward with pleasure to life either with Jane or Penelope.’