Over his face came the grey, despairing look that aged him so and had so frightened Emma at Hartfield. She stood.
‘I shall go to Isabella or it will be time for dinner.’
‘Yes. Do not overtax yourself after dinner—’ he hesitated, took her hand, ‘I must tell you that there is no bedchamber big enough for us both here – I am in lodgings. It is a modest place but clean enough – in Henrietta Street.’
‘Oh, Knightley!’
‘It is not as I would wish it’ – bitter – ‘but then nothing is as I would wish it.’
Something more was hidden in this ‘nothing’ but Emma must go to her sister, must overcome her own disappointment that her husband would not be at her side during the nights and greet Isabella with all the affection that she very truly felt.
Her sister stood by her mirror, welcoming.
‘Look! I am dressed in your honour! I had grown so slovenly in my dear husband’s absence.’
‘You did not have to dress for me, Isabella. What does your doctor advise?’
‘Dear Mr Wingfield. You will meet him tomorrow, I have no doubt. He has been in attendance every day. I have absolute confidence in him and he in me. Rest, it is all he prescribes. So I rest; it’s the boys who suffer – but you have been with them. Did you find them well?’
Isabella’s pride in her children was as great as any young mother and as she went through the different virtues and (very few) vices of each of her five children in turn, Emma understood that it was not so odd that she suspected little of the disaster that had struck her husband. Her outlook was so narrow, so limited to her family circle, of whom John Knightley was an honoured but not intimate member, that she had no time or will to think of the world outside. The set-aside position of Brunswick Square could only encourage this tendency.
If you can keep the boys from going wild, that will be such a service. How dull that sounds! But you will not be dull. Although I shall rest, you shall have visitors – go out to the shops – Mr Knightley must arrange seats at the theatre!’
‘You are kind, Isabella – but I have come not on my own account, but on yours—’
‘Yes. Yes. But do not believe I am such a poor-spirited creature that I wilt entirely under my husband’s absence. He is often gone on business; no man has ever worked so hard. I am glad you are come, however – very glad and only sorry that we cannot house Mr Knightley here also – but you who have never seen London must take advantage of your visit. When Harriet Smith came—’
‘Ah, Mrs Martin!’
‘Yes, yes. The marriage was arranged in this very house, you know. She and Robert Martin and the children went to Astley’s – I wonder if you should enjoy that, although you are already married!’
As Isabella laughed at her own witticism and said, if her sister would give her the benefit of her arm, they must go down to dinner directly or Cook would give in to her fierce temper, Emma reflected that she seemed anything but downhearted. Whether that would make the blow to come more cruel she had not the leisure to consider but, if Isabella could insist – which it seemed she would – on her, Emma, going about the town, like a regular visitor, then it would be hard to think of a reason why not. It was a strange position Emma felt herself in – a great sword hung over the family, had wounded already its most important member, yet inside the house all was merriment. She must take the advice of Mr Knightley.
The time for this came after dinner when all the children and Isabella had removed themselves upstairs.
‘It seems odd, Mr Knightley, that I have caused such an upheaval in my father’s life to come and lead a life of pleasure—’
He looked startled.
Isabella insists I go out – she talks of visits – theatre – shops—’
He attended closely.
‘It is odd that I know what she doesn’t know.’
‘Poor Emma – to keep such a secret! I must warn you that my efforts towards secrecy may not serve and then your presence will be a necessity and there will be no pleasure. Meanwhile, do as you think fit; my brother’s situation will not be made worse by the smiles of his family. I shall be busy too often, I fear, to take you around very much and my mind is too heavy; but take advantage of what comes your way. I would not be the one to stop you in any pleasures, even if Isabella did not insist—’
‘—But the creditors?’
‘Trust that to me.’ He turned away – ‘I must take my leave.’
‘I shall take over the running of the house from Isabella.’
‘Yes. Yes.’ He was impatient to be gone, she observed, out into the cold darkness, not even telling her when he would return.
Emma stood beside the curtain long after his firm steps – they were firm – had disappeared; and then, sighing for a husband who was not confiding everything in her, sighing for Hartfield and for home, she made her way upstairs.
Chapter 15
‘There are two visitors for you, ma’am.’ Emma was upstairs superintending the boys’ lesson – for their tutor seemed in want of a little assistance in the line of discipline – when the maid knocked at the door. In the two days since her arrival she had found plenty to occupy herself and not so much need to push away the ‘pleasure’ that her sister had spoken of.
The house was not so well ordered, after all. Isabella had indeed been resting and, as Emma was soon informed by Mr Wingfield, the attentive doctor, must continue to do so if she were not to incur dangerous risks. Emma knew herself needed; it was a message she was glad to hear and she was so ready to oblige that she had only stepped out of the house to accompany Henry and John on the smallest expedition – time enough to take notice of the palatial Foundling Hospital that Mr Knightley had spoken of, which quite dominated the scene – time enough to see another fine square so like their own as to be indistinguishable (she held to her view that the country style was far more individual) but no time for shops, churches, public buildings, of which, it was true, there was no sight.
Her main occupation was inside the house and, since the weather had become very cold for the early days of November and Mr Knightley attended only for dinner, she had not regretted any further chance for exploration. But now there were visitors.
Checking her clothes with the confidence of someone who knows that a pretty face and fine figure makes her appear well dressed in whatever she happens to be wearing, Emma nevertheless called in at her chamber to exchange her present shawl for a better.
‘Who is it?’ she inquired of the maid, since Isabella must not be disturbed.
The Reverend Mr Dugobair Tidmarsh,’ said the girl, not without an indication that she knew the name had a ring, ‘and Mrs Tidmarsh. They are often here.’
Armed with this information, Emma entered the room bravely; a vicar held no fears for her – not even a vicar of the London variety.
‘I do hope we are not disturbing you – so keen to make your acquaintance – Mr Wingfield told us of your arrival, your sequestration with the poor invalid – both husbands occupied—’ The woman came forward, talking; the man behind, silent.
Since these were the first example of Londoners that Emma had met she looked at them attentively. Mrs Tidmarsh was elegant, fiercely elegant, hair as black as a raven’s wing, brows flying above dark eyes, tall and strikingly dressed in amber shades, trimmed with black velvet. All this Emma took in at a glance while her visitor talked in a voice deep rather than light.
‘We have come to take you out,’ she concluded, ‘we have hired a carriage so you cannot refuse.’
Indeed, there outside the window stood a carriage – not a very smart one, it is true, and its driver was trying to set light to a most unpipe-like pipe, but a carriage even so.
‘You are very kind.’ Emma tried to glimpse Mr Tidmarsh but he seemed to be sheltering behind his wife. She could discern, however, that he was slight, dark and young – younger,
by some years it would seem, than his wife.
‘I am impulsive.’ she said. ‘You may feel I am too impulsive for a stranger. Come, Dugobair, add your pleas to mine.’
‘We would be most honoured if you would accompany us on a small tour—’ at last Mr Tidmarsh had a voice, a quiet, gentle voice like his face – ‘We thought perhaps St Paul’s Cathedral, the river, Covent Garden?—’ He ended in hesitancy and question.
‘My sister—’ began Emma.
‘Your sister comes to Mr Tidmarsh’s church – she is very fond of him. But you must ask her. We will wait.’
What was it about this woman, so apparently domineering to the point of rudeness, that made Emma wish to take the proposed carriage ride? The obvious energy, the humorous delivery, the sharp, clever look in her face?
‘I shall be a moment!’ she cried. And a moment it was; Isabella, awake now and playing with little Emma, on the bed, told her sister she must go at once because she, herself, had set it all up with Mr Wingfield, and she had not forewarned her in case it came to naught. ‘Philomena is most self-willed – she cannot be made to do anything she does not want. She is very good too,’ Isabella hastened to add in case she seemed severe on a friend. ‘Her work for the poor of the parish puts me to shame’ – a smile of satisfaction – ‘but then, dear lady, she has not been blessed with a fine family of children.’
***
Still a little discomposed by the speed with which her situation had changed, Emma found herself seated between Mr and Mrs Tidmarsh and making speed towards the centre of London.
‘St Paul’s Cathedral is a good enough place to begin.’ Mrs Tidmarsh was all enthusiasm, as if she must bind Emma’s attention more certainly; and it was true that Emma thought one moment how she should have brought Henry and John – but it had not been offered – and the next – this a more severe distraction – that she wished Mr Knightley had been at her side; he should have been the one to give her a view of London. But such misgivings could not last long under Mrs Tidmarsh’s determination.
‘Two entire days and you have seen nothing. Dugobair, tell Mrs Knightley what the great doctor says about our city—’ An aside to Emma, ‘Mr Tidmarsh is the repository of all the words I need – my memory, as a consequence, is lamentable!’
Here Malice, Rapine, Accident, conspire,
And now a rabble rages, now a fire;
Their Ambush here relentless Ruffians lay,
And here the fell Attorney prowls for Prey;
Here falling Houses thunder on your Head,
And here a female Atheist talks you dead.
Mrs Tidmarsh tried to stop him with mock anger, ‘No! No! He teases me. The other—’
‘When a man is tired of London he is tired of life—’
‘Yes. Yes. I love the sound of that, although I would that Dr Johnson had thought to add “woman.” There are occupations for women,’ she began and then broke off all of a sudden to ask Emma in serious interrogation, a frown appearing, beetling her dark brows, whether she liked to shop.
‘In Highbury, there is Ford’s – a general draper – I like to shop there well enough, although the choice is small.’
‘I do not refer to one shop’ – emphatically – ‘I refer to a plurality of shops, to an avenue of windows as long as an avenue of trees leading to the greatest of shops – I refer to Oxford Street!’
‘Oxford Street?’ questioned Emma, feeling more ignorant and humble than she ever had in her life.
‘Shall I tell her, dear Mr Tidmarsh?’
‘You will not be able to resist, dear Philomena. When have you been ever able to resist?’
The sharp face swivelled close to Emma’s. ‘I recently made an investigation into the items for sale in Oxford Street and I discovered there are—’ her voice began to race, as if she were an impatient child reciting her prayers – ‘thirty-three linen drapers, ten straw hat manufacturers, two silk and satin dressers and dyers, twenty-four boot and shoemakers, five woollen drapers, two drapers and tailors, three fancy trimmings and fringes manufacturers, one India-muslin warehouse, three plumassiers—’
‘You must not be confused,’ Mr Tidmarsh interjected with his kindly gaze on Emma, ‘Mrs Tidmarsh speaks out of hate, not love. Mrs Tidmarsh hates shopping – this act of learning is an act of self-flagellation—’
‘I am relieved!’ exclaimed Emma.
‘Good. You are of like mind. No shopping. We have cleared the way for churches, coffee-houses and bridges. To walk across a bridge is my chiefest delight—’
‘The weather is hardly clement,’ interrupted Mr Tidmarsh. ‘Non omnia possumus omnes, as Virgil observed.’
‘You may lecture us now, Tidmarsh. I shall take a rest.’
With Mrs Tidmarsh silent, fine eyes actually closed, Mr Tidmarsh explained to Emma some of the historical growth to this giant city, that the cathedral had been finished over a hundred years ago, that the dull smokiness in the air, of which Mrs Knightley must be only too aware, was due to the burning of fossil coal forms and that, if they could make their way through all the jostle and busyness, they would drive on down to Covent Garden and then through to the wider streets of Mayfair where they would stop at a chocolate house. His habit of slipping occasionally into Latin added to his authority in Emma’s eyes, even if it proportionately diminished her understanding.
‘Coffee,’ intervened Mrs Tidmarsh, opening her eyes in a flash.
‘Chocolate,’ insisted Mr Tidmarsh. ‘And we may have just time enough to catch a glimpse of the elegant St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park and even see the walks and lake of the park itself, before we return you, exhausted, cold, desperate, to your comfortable Brunswick Square.’
‘Will we not set foot to ground in an ambulatory motion?’ asked Mrs Tidmarsh, tapping her foot – well shod, Emma noticed, with a good strong boot which hardly accorded with her fine pelisse.
‘Unless we hold our feet in the air, they must touch ground at the chocolate house—’ the word ‘chocolate’ was emphatic – ‘but my ambition is to show Mrs Knightley few of the individualities of our city but rather an impression of the whole. It is a way to approach—’
‘I am most grateful—’ began Emma.
‘You will be more grateful to be home—’
‘I am sure—’
‘And now we are at Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. Philomena, perhaps you would be good enough to remain in the carriage, for I put no trust in this pipe-torturing driver to control his horses and at least you may direct him back, while I take Mrs Knightley inside.’
‘But I understood—’ began Emma.
‘Viewing a church is not walking – it is floating—’
‘You are fanciful, Mrs Tidmarsh. May I help you out, Mrs Knightley? Now direct your eyes upwards – Veni, vidi … Ah! If I tired of such a sight, I would—’
‘Dr Johnson said it better, my dear!’ called Mrs Tidmarsh from the carriage.
Never had Emma endured such a day. They had squeezed their way through the streets in company of chaise after chaise, coach after coach, cart after cart; through the din and clamour of thousands of tongues and feet, of bells from the church steeples, postmen’s bells, street organs, fiddles of itinerant musicians and cries of the vendors of hot and cold food at the street corners.
By the time they emerged into the purer light and air of Mayfair where there were stone pavements and fine tall buildings which Mr Tidmarsh advised her were the London clubs where gentlemen gamed away thousands of pounds a night, she would have drunk gin, if it had been offered her. Instead she was guided into a small chocolate shop by Mr Tidmarsh who apologised that he must abandon the ladies for a few minutes while he executed some parish business.
‘This is tolerably elegant, do you not agree?’ Mrs Tidmarsh looked around her at the oak-panelled room with its glass-fronted bow-window.
‘Oh, yes. Your husband has been so very kind, so patient with my ignorance—’ she hesitated at Mrs Tidmarsh’s look of bewilderment.
Then ‘My husband!’ – a laugh so shrill as to attract notice from the next table – ‘Dugobair, my husband! Oh, I am so sorry! But it is such a very droll notion. Mr Tidmarsh – I see how it occurred, Mr and Mrs Tidmarsh – perfectly natural you should think – but I am Mr Tidmarsh’s mother!’
‘Mother!’ exclaimed Emma, for there could not be as much as ten years between them. ‘I shall tell you my life story – if your ears have any room left after this morning’s lectures. I was married to Mr Tidmarsh’s father – he was upward of twenty years older than me – his first wife who was French died in those terrible years that poor country suffered which I do not wish to think about. Dugobair – my late husband believed it is some sort of French name, although I hold that the first Mrs Tidmarsh invented it in the belief it was very English – Dugobair (you see the Frenchiness at the end) – was born in France where they were living – my husband, Mr Tidmarsh, had taken orders but his life was devoted to music – from where they returned to London and I made their acquaintance. The late Mr Tidmarsh, although so much older, was the noblest, truest, most brilliant, most informed—’ she sighed and fell silent.
‘Mr Knightley is nearly seventeen years older than I am,’ Emma, out of ordinary politeness, thought to lift the sadness but, as she spoke the words, she found herself shocked that she should communicate something so personal, so private, to a stranger, to someone who had been a stranger only a few hours ago. Not even with Mrs Weston had she discussed the difference in age between herself and Mr Knightley. It had been too tender a point – although she did not quite know the reason – to be aired abroad. But now she had pronounced the words – in public!
‘Would that his health is good,’ said Mrs Tidmarsh heavily.
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