Emma & Knightley

by Rachel Billington

  ‘Where do you intend to affix it?’ inquired Emma, somewhat bemused – and indeed charitably concerned that Miss Bates should not make a fool of herself (and therefore Mr Woodhouse, for they were sure to be affixed to each other) in front of the Sucklings; it was extraordinary how even Emma, despite her stern views on Mrs Elton’s vulgarity, had begun to believe, by sheer virtue of Mrs Elton repeating it so often, that Mrs Suckling really did aspire to a notion of high fashion that might put Highbury to shame.

  Miss Bates was vague as to what portion of her dress should be adorned by the brocade. ‘Perhaps the bodice,’ she suggested eventually.

  Emma looked at Miss Bates’ small, flat chest and thought it best not drawn attention to. ‘Perhaps panels might look better – in the skirt.’

  ‘Or a train?’ Miss Bates gave a strange self-conscious smile.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think a train,’ said Emma firmly. ‘To wear a train, you must have a head-dress and I hardly expect you to wear a head-dress.’

  ‘Quite. Quite.’ Miss Bates became in a flurry, although there seemed no reason for it, and left the room with murmurs of Mr Woodhouse which left the plum brocade still unaccounted for. Probably, Emma thought to herself, Miss Bates would think better of the whole idea and put the material safely away in her drawer.

  ***

  Preparations for the ball and preparations for her visitors left Emma little time for politics or philosophy; but, on the day that the Tidmarshes were expected, she laid a book or two on the little table in the parlour.

  Mr Knightley, who had stayed in to greet the guests, noted it and gave Emma an indulgent smile which she understood and did not altogether appreciate. ‘My reading is not abandoned, you see!’ she said, half humorously, half defensively.

  ‘You have put them there as a symbol,’ said Mr Knightley. ‘As another might lay out her sewing.’

  ‘Or as a man might lay down his hunting crop,’ added Emma, although hardly knowing what she meant since Knightley never had followed the hounds.

  The discussion could not continue, however, for it was interrupted by the easily recognisable sound of the wheels of James’s carriage – it had been sent to London – entering the driveway at its usual steady pace.

  Emma flew out, Mr Knightley stood at the door and Miss Bates, peering out at the noise, went to inform Mr Woodhouse.

  ‘My word!’ exclaimed Mr Knightley, who was not usually so involuntary.

  ‘I think – I think,’ Emma stared at the object, like a great golden ploughshare, protruding out of the carriage, ‘they have brought the harp!’

  The carriage stopped; James climbed down – servants were summoned – harp, cases, Mrs Tidmarsh and the Reverend Dugobair Tidmarsh had arrived.

  ‘Oh, my dear!’

  ‘My dear!’ The ladies kissed; the men shook hands; the guests came into the hallway where they were introduced to Mr Woodhouse (on a stick) and Miss Bates (twittering behind him); and Emma looked at her friend. It was a shock – or, at very least, a surprise.

  It is a well attested truth that a person may give a very different impression according to the habitat in which they are viewed: a gardener in his garden will take on the rustic charm and ease which he will lack in a concert hall; a queen will appear grander in her palace than she will beside her coach if the wheel comes off; a jockey will be a large man on his mount, a midget among his peers outside the profession. Philomena Tidmarsh, in London, had seemed to Emma a fine, elegant-looking woman, with her eagle features, black hair and predilection for striking mixes of colour in her dress and jewellery, but here, now, standing in the beautiful simplicity of Hartfield’s hallway, silhouetted against the window, through which trees, lightly clad in their spring green, waved in a gentle breeze, she looked, not merely striking – but – Emma sought for the word as her friend’s purple and orange turbaned head swayed over Mr Woodhouse, and found it: she looked outlandish!

  ‘My dear,’ Mr Knightley nudged her arm, ‘your guests must be tired.’

  ‘Not at all!’ cried Philomena, ‘or, let us say, I am perfectly exhausted and perfectly exhilarated all at the same time!’

  ‘You should rest, my dear,’ Mr Tidmarsh took his stepmother’s arm.

  At least Mr Tidmarsh appeared perfectly quiet and gentlemanly in his clergyman’s black; indeed, the only change that transference to the country had made in him was to show him as far more handsome than Emma had recalled. He was, with his darkness and lean figure, quite like a romantic hero, Emma thought, although not at all the sort of looks she herself admired. She gave Knightley a quick look; he was bearing up well under Mrs Tïdmarsh’s effusions.

  She was explaining that her recent indisposition had made it impossible for her to play her harp but that she could not bring herself to leave it aside any longer and, moreover, had always previously found it most efficacious in restoring her health and spirits – not just because of the exercise it engendered but because of the soothing nature of its music.

  Mr Knightley assured her of the harp’s welcome; he, personally, had so much admired her playing at Christmas in London. There only remained the question of where it should stand.

  ‘I am sure any corner will serve!’ cried Philomena.

  But this could hardly be the truth; draughts must be avoided for Mrs Tidmarsh’s health, sun must be avoided for the health of the harp, and Mr Woodhouse, who had retired to his favourite chair with the look of an animal who felt safe in his lair, was curiously adamant that any free corner in the parlour would not do for one reason or another.

  The arrival, the welcome, the warm feelings on all sides were in grave danger of being dispelled when Emma felt a pluck on her sleeve.

  ‘Yes, Miss Bates?’

  She whispered, ‘I wonder – my rooms – empty – dry – sun hardly makes its appearance before two—’

  It was decided! James should be found before he had time to unharness the horses and the harp should be transported into Highbury where it could be visited by its owner on a daily basis.

  Good humour was general. Mr Woodhouse lost his beleaguered look and offered poor Mrs Tidmarsh a basin of gruel – her illness was in her favour once he had established she had suffered from nothing infectious. Mr Knightley and Mr Tidmarsh went off immediately on a walk – they would follow the carriage into town and see the harp to safe harbour, Miss Bates tucked the rug round Mr Woodhouse (a comfort after such a disturbance, even on a warm day) and Emma ordered coffee and cakes for her friend.

  ‘All this and coffee too!’ cried Mrs Tidmarsh when it came, and she looked at Mrs Knightley. ‘I have never been so happy to be anywhere in my life!’

  Such unaffected gratitude and warmth of feeling must do much to counteract the adverse effects of an appearance and a personality which for a while, with sinking heart, Emma had thought more appropriate for the stage than Hartfield’s quiet country life.

  Chapter 29

  Emma’s fears that she had invited a garish cuckoo into her nest lessened quickly and in a day or two had quite disappeared. Mrs Tidmarsh was very unlike any other lady in Highbury, in looks and manner – that would not change and for that her hostess should have been prepared since it was the very reason she had felt drawn to her. But the particularly exaggerated dress of her arrival had not been repeated on the days that followed, nor that high-pitched level of excitement. Poor Mrs Tidmarsh, without experience of the English countryside, dressed and acted out of nervousness and a wish to impress; indeed she admitted it to Emma. Once she had been shown her room – which she admired excessively, saying it made her feel like a shepherdess – and was assured the harp caused no problems, she settled down into a much easier pitch. Besides, for the first two days she was so tired from the journey that she descended very little from her room and, when she did, won the heart of Mr Woodhouse by a willingness to take any of his health-giving potions, not excluding the noxious gruel.
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br />   ‘I tip it into the poor geranium,’ she confided in Emma, as they sat in the drawing-room, on the third afternoon of the visit, ‘that way I do not disappoint your dear, kind-hearted father and do not kill myself.’

  ‘I wonder that no one has thought of that before,’ replied Emma, determined not to be shocked.

  ‘It is just as well for the geranium that no one has,’ laughed Philomena. ‘Now, tomorrow, I must catch up with Dugobair and become a tourist. I feel quite strong enough. May I meet your old friend, Mrs Weston?’

  Emma reassured her this was only too easy as Mrs Weston had far too many responsibilities to be ever away from her home.

  This surprised Mrs Tidmarsh considerably and she began further questions about the ladies of Highbury. She showed a great interest in Mrs Goddard’s school. ‘The pupils pay, you say?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Mr Martin’s wife—’ Emma paused and then went bravely on – ‘Harriet Martin attended the school and so did his sister, Elizabeth, and one further sister, Louisa, is still there, I believe. You will know that the Martins have come into quite a bit of money—’ another gulp – ‘or rather Mrs Martin. They are building a dining-room.’

  ‘A dining-room!’ exclaimed Mrs Tidmarsh disapprovingly, clearly not appreciating the significance of such an essential to social life. ‘If I came into money, I would not spend it on something as dull as a dining-room; it is always the dreariest room in the house – at St Peter’s I never enter the room from one bishop’s visit to the next!’

  ‘What would you build?’ asked Emma.

  ‘A turret! With winding stone stairs and battlements. I should fly a flag—’

  ‘Oh, Philomena!’

  ‘Do you remember I once informed you I was writing a novel—’

  ‘I am not sure—’

  ‘I stopped. I started. I stopped. And now I have started again. It is to have a heroine who is as brave as Jeanne d’Arc and as beautiful as Desdemona.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Do you not like the sound of it?’

  ‘Oh yes. It is just that I thought you would write something more – more serious—’

  ‘Serious! You do not think Shakespeare combined with an admirable French heroine—’

  ‘The French are our enemies,’ tried Emma, timidly, feeling out of her depth.

  ‘The war has ended—’

  ‘Only very recently. But I had thought you might write about people who are closer to our lives – more real—’

  ‘You are quite in the right of it. I must not waste my intelligence on sentimental rubbish. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings – on which subject, is it true, as I have been informed, that the ball is deferred?’

  ‘Only till Friday.’

  ‘But Dugobair may miss it.’

  ‘No, indeed. He has promised Mr Knightley to return.’

  ‘They are very thick, your husband and my dear vicar.’

  ‘Yes. They are. I am glad of it. I believe they give each other great pleasure,’ Emma smiled at the picture of these two gentlemen, so unlike, and so happy in each other’s company. ‘They instruct each other, one in the art of countryside management and the other in classical learning.’ Indeed, as she finished speaking, she saw the two of them riding up the driveway side by side and, as if in illustration of her description, as they entered the hallway, she heard Mr Tidmarsh proclaim in his clever, quick way, ‘Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,’ followed by Mr Knightley’s good-humoured plea, ‘Translate, if you please, sir.’ On which Mr Tidmarsh laughed and pronounced, ‘You may drive out nature with a pitchfork but she is constantly running back.’ ‘Oh, I can see why John made a friend of you!’ cried Knightley.

  They came into the drawing-room, tousled and hearty, with even Mr Tidmarsh’s sallow cheeks coloured by sun and wind.

  Together they removed to Emma’s special round table where they were joined by Mr Woodhouse and Miss Bates. Afternoon cups of tea had become an institution – both Tidmarshes were thought far too under-nourished by Mr Woodhouse – and, as Emma presided over the teapot and sugar tongs, her heart swelled with pride at the scene of cheerfulness for which she could not fail to take principal credit.

  ‘We looked in at Abbey-Mill Farm earlier,’ said Mr Knightley. ‘Mr Tidmarsh was keen to renew his acquaintance with Mr Martin.’

  ‘It was my acquaintance,’ objected Mrs Tidmarsh gaily. ‘My cowardly son did not join us at Miss Eliza O’Neill’s performance on the excuse of pressing parish business. Now, Mrs Knightley – you have grown all of a sudden very silent – support me in my remembrance. Is it not true that Mr Tidmarsh declined the honour of an evening with Mr Martin – although I believe it was Miss O’Neill he avoided rather than your friend!’

  Since Emma made no answer, Mr Knightley, after casting her an inquiring look, took up the point. ‘Mr Tidmarsh met Robert Martin, I understand, on an earlier occasion – the occasion on which Mrs Martin was staying in my brother’s house.’

  ‘To be sure. I had quite forgot. Pretty little Harriet Smith, I met her with Isabella. I must be allowed to visit them very soon. Tomorrow, perhaps. I thought Mr Martin such an honest, upright man, it will be a pleasure to see how he makes out in the way of marriage. Emma, may we forego Mrs Weston one more day, and go for the gentleman-farmer?’

  But Emma seemed to need all her concentration for a sugar lump that would not be separated from its fellows and fell back off the tongs time and time again, until her face was quite heated. On this occasion, Mr Tidmarsh took up the conversation. I have never seen such a charming pastoral, though they knock walls about just now. Mrs Martin even persuaded Miss Elizabeth Martin to play a tune to show off their new pianoforte. Though her modesty forbade her more than a few bars, I was struck by her talent.’

  ‘Praise from my son indeed,’ commented Mrs Tidmarsh.

  ‘We are sorry Mr Tidmarsh must take his leave from us so soon,’ Mr Woodhouse offered, keen to be a part of the general benignity.

  Mr Tidmarsh bowed; Mr Knightley comforted Mr Woodhouse by informing him that their guest would return; Miss Bates allowed that no one would wish to miss the Sucklings’ Ball (as the Coles’ dinner was termed); Mrs Tidmarsh smiled at Miss Bates and said that the last ball she had been to was on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo; and only Emma was quiet, the glow that had been around her when they first sat down, dimmed. Gradually her spirits revived, her voice was heard again, but more as if she made an effort than as a natural effusion of happiness.

  The next morning, Mr Tidmarsh left early to catch the post-chaise and Mrs Tidmarsh returned to her theme of an early visit to the Martins. Somewhat to her surprise, Emma remained unconvinced that this should take precedence over a visit to Randalls; she insisted that Mrs Weston deserved their attention first and that a visit to Randalls could be combined with a visit to the harp, languishing unplayed in Miss Bates’ rooms; moreover, they could reach all these objectives on foot which, with a rest in between, would do her dear friend good – whereas Abbey-Mill Farm was way beyond Highbury and the carriage would have to be ordered, perhaps difficult as James was suffering from gout. ‘Besides,’ here Emma lifted her voice and smiled at Mrs Tidmarsh, ‘if we did go, we would certainly not find Mr Martin at home in bright weather like this and that, I cannot help believing, my dear Philomena, would seriously diminish your pleasure in the visit!’

  Overwhelmed by such a high tide of good reasons to give up a project which was more a whim than an absolute need, Mrs Tidmarsh deferred to her friend and, by eleven in the morning, the two ladies were halfway along the path to Randalls. Philomena breathed deeply of the mild air – particularly so for April – and felt sure she smelled the sharp sweetness of eucalyptus. ‘Ah! How that reminds me of a house Mr Tidmarsh and I inhabited in France – a long summer of study and music – it was the last before we returned to London and he fell ill. My dear, never forget the blessings
of a happy marriage.’

  ‘But I thought – or perhaps it is a consequence of the decease of Mr Tidmarsh—?’

  ‘You are delicate, my dear Emma. I will not marry again, that is true. I do not believe, as is said, marriages are made in heaven. If an equal partnership were possible – if affection could go hand in hand with respect and friendship – but I must not lecture you – you who are living the very situation that I describe?’ She paused expectantly – the question mark like the Damoclean sword over Emma’s head.

  ‘It is true,’ began Emma, ‘that Mr Knightley and I, owing to our long association – I have known him as long as I can remember – do not have a marriage based on a sudden,’ she hesitated, but the word must be said, ‘passion—’

  ‘Ah!’ Mrs Tidmarsh drew in a breath.

  ‘He has always been my guide in what is right; his upright nature, goodness—’

  ‘—upright nature, goodness—’ repeated Mrs Tidmarsh.

  ‘—have shown me the way of right behaviour since I was a child—’

  ‘But you are no longer a child?’

  ‘No. No. I am not—’

  ‘And therein lies a lack – a lack that leads away from perfection—’

  ‘He is not used to confiding in me. Why should he be?’ Emma had stopped walking, and unconscious of her actions, dug a hole in the gravel with her toe, making it quite damp and dirty in the process.