‘And at last my feathers can fly out of their wrappings!’ cried Philomena.
Only Mr Tidmarsh, who had laid his large Bible carefully on a side table before taking an ample portion of ham and porridge (sitting strangely side by side on the same plate so that Emma suspected he thought the porridge was potato), seemed unmoved by the arrival of the inhabitants of Maple Grove. His face wore, indeed, a more than usually bewildered air and, eventually, after he had listened to a good fifteen minutes of conversation in which every sentence included the world ‘Suckling’, he asked politely, ‘May I ask who are these Sucklings? I believe I have not had the honour of making their acquaintance in Highbury but I can see I am sadly out of luck. They must be remarkable people to hold your attention for so long. Miss Bates, I cannot help noticing, has not even finished her milk pudding.’
Mr Knightley laughed heartily at this. ‘Do not make yourself unhappy, Dugobair. None of us know the Sucklings, although Mrs Elton has spoken of nothing else since her arrival here. Her power over us is so great that we would probably rather meet the Sucklings – although we all presume them to be quite vulgar and stupid – than anyone in England. Our interest, that you have noted so accurately, merely points to the strength of curiosity – which may yet become one of the deadly sins!’
‘You are too hard on us, Mr Knightley!’ cried Mrs Tidmarsh. ‘It is the ball, Dugobair; you knew all about it a week ago. Until the Sucklings came, the Coles could not give their ball!’
‘But surely the Coles may give a ball any time they please – with or without the Sucklings?’ inquired Mr Tidmarsh innocently.
‘A ball must have a reason, a raison d’être as the French would say. The Sucklings are the “raison de danse”.’
‘It is very agreeable to see everyone so happy,’ said Mr Woodhouse, ‘I have never known a breakfast more sociable. I do declare it is more like a dinner, when I am always amazed by the way that even the quietest young ladies will put themselves out to speak – even venture opinions.’
‘Oh, papa!’ It was in this kindly-old-gentleman role that Emma could always love her father best. ‘We must thank the Sucklings for this then, that they have turned a breakfast into a dinner.’
‘And soon,’ added Mr Tidmarsh, with his eye jealously guarding his Bible from the servants clearing dishes, ‘if I have understood the matter right, they will turn a dinner into a dance!’
After this summary of the beneficial effects of the Sucklings’ advent, breakfast was concluded.
Emma, watching Mr Tidmarsh depart speedily with the good book cradled in both arms, and desirous of addressing Mr Knightley, commented, ‘Mr Tidmarsh is most attached to that Bible.’
Knightley stopped beside her, looked into her face, ‘It is from the Donwell library. A great old book. It has been in the family for generations.’
‘I see.’ Emma lowered her eyes, although she laid her arm on his sleeve. ‘I wonder you let it out of the Abbey.’
‘I like it to be read – and by such a one as Mr Tidmarsh.’
They began to walk together out of the dining-room and into the hall. Emma, feeling a sudden urge to cast herself into Knightley’s arms – followed almost immediately by a wish to escape to the kitchen, upstairs, to the drawing-room – stayed quietly at his side. They were alone together in the hall but not private enough for Emma to say what was in her mind, ‘Why did you not come to me last night?’
‘I am glad you will have a ball to amuse you,’ said Mr Knightley. ‘You have not been in spirits lately.’ It was a statement where she would have preferred a question.
So they parted.
***
It was inevitable that many of Highbury’s worthiest inhabitants felt the necessity to take a walk – or a ride – into town that day. Emma and Philomena, one in urgent need of exchanging the trimming bought mistakenly by Merry (quite the wrong shade of sage) and the other determined to conquer an awkward rill on her harp (she was sure Frank would be outside his rooms early on such another fine day), set off arm in arm. They were soon joined by Miss Bates, breathlessly exclaiming her need for a particular cherry twist with which she would mend Mr Woodhouse’s favourite waistcoat.
‘Can I not purchase it for you?’ inquired Emma. ‘I shall myself be in Ford’s.’
‘Oh dear me no! I have the colour fixed quite in my head. I could not trouble you—’
‘You certainly cannot pass over your head to Mrs Knightley,’ laughed Mrs Tidmarsh. ‘I suspect we shall find Highbury remarkably full of life today.’
Indeed it was so. They had hardly reached the main street before Mr and Mrs Cole could be seen proceeding towards the Crown with excessively genial expressions.
‘Mrs Knightley! Mrs Tidmarsh! Miss Bates!’ Mr Cole hailed them from a distance. ‘You have heard the news, of course! Mr and Mrs Suckling in town before the cock crowed thrice! Ha! We have already a note for dinner so that we may make plans for our ball – although in truth the plans have been in place for these many months!’
All this was said, or rather shouted, before the two parties had managed to close the gap. The moment they were near enough for the semblance of a confidential whisper, Mrs Cole took over from her husband, ‘Poor dear Augusta – she was found in her rubbed yellow dress with an apron over it and her hair quite undressed. It is a terrible thing when you are caught out by your sister in an unladylike attire merely because you are an excessively conscientious housekeeper. She wrote me she was quite mortified!’
‘We are off to the Crown,’ continued Mr Cole. ‘May I give at least two of you ladies an arm?’
The three ladies began explaining the reasons for their hastening into Highbury but Mr Cole – made forcefully gallant, perhaps, by his satisfaction in knowing he would in a day or two have the honour of looking after them in his own house – soon had Mrs Tidmarsh on one arm, Emma on the other and Mrs Cole lined up with Miss Bates behind. ‘Whatever your occupations, you cannot forego a quick inspection of the two carriages in which the owners of Maple Grove travelled. I must say it is a notion that amazed Mrs Cole and I. A carriage for each person. We wondered whether this is done in the best circles? Mrs Knightley, we told ourselves, would be assured to know of such a notion – if it were fashionable, that is!’ – with which he turned inquiringly to Emma.
The only reason I can suggest for such a separation is that Mr and Mrs Suckling do not enjoy each other’s company over a long period,’ replied Emma.
Mr Cole looked a little taken aback by this pronouncement which had a distinctly critical ring, but Mrs Tidmarsh laughed immoderately – a reaction explained when Emma saw Frank Churchill crossing the street towards them.
‘Off to spy on the famous Sucklings’ equipage!’ was his happy cry. And soon he had taken Miss Bates and Mrs Cole on either arm and fallen in behind them.
Emma was beginning to feel distinctly ridiculous – even more so when, on arrival at the Crown, she found Mrs Goddard stopped with a string of pupils and saw Mr Weston approaching on his horse at a brisk trot. Dignity fought with curiosity and Emma found herself gathered with her friends in the inner courtyard, inspecting the modes of conveyance chosen by the owners of Maple Grove which – since she had never shown the slightest interest in discerning the peculiarities of one carriage from another in all her life up to that point – proved that Suckling fever was sweeping away even the most engrained habits of mind.
‘They are fine enough carriages,’ pronounced Frank generally, with the air of a man most fitted for judgement. ‘But I always hold you cannot tell the quality of a carriage till you have the horses harnessed and are spanking down the turnpike. A carriage without horses is like a harp without a player.’
‘So true! Absolutely!’ Mr Cole relished the wit while Frank bowed to Mrs Tidmarsh and Mr Weston tapped the barouche-landau assessingly with his riding crop.
‘But there are certainly two of them,’ Mi
ss Bates suggested timidly.
‘Most definitely two,’ agreed Mrs Cole, which was followed by a satisfying level of shared assurance that the two large objects shining brightly in front of them were indeed two carriages, to be more exact a barouche-landau and a chaise.
‘Notwithstanding we see them standing here, I still find myself surprised that they should feel the need for two,’ Mrs Cole frowned in illustration of her puzzlement.
‘Perhaps they felt two would be useful since Mr and Mrs Elton do not possess one at all?’ suggested Miss Bates and, finding many eyes turned her way and many minds engaged on estimating the possible truth of her statement, retreated nervously to the entrance to the courtyard.
Emma, too, had begun to think of leaving and was following Miss Bates when a magnificently large shadow was cast across the arched brightness of the street followed by a magnificently large gentleman. Seeing his way blocked by two ladies, and the courtyard quite filled with people as if for a party, he stopped and made noises of surprised affability; although these were mostly of one syllable and would not have been recognised by Dr Johnson as worthy for inclusion in his so-called English Dictionary, being of the ‘Huh! Ho! Eh! Ah!’ variety, amongst them was eventually pronounced the word ‘Suckling’, the hat removed and a wide bow made – wider than it was deep since his huge girth made folding-over an anatomical impossibility.
Emma, being nearest, understood what was not at once clear to the rest of the assembly. Here stood Mr Suckling in person – he of the York Tan gloves, of the collapsing house – his fortitude in keeping hold of the gravy-boat now, perhaps, explained. Mr Suckling might be the grandest of gentlemen, in his sister-in-law’s eyes; he was also quite certainly the largest.
‘A giant of a man!’ as Mrs Tidmarsh laughed to Frank Churchill when, after such loud expressions of goodwill that the horses in the stable began to think the hunt was in town and stamped their feet excitedly, the Crown courtyard party broke up and the various groups set off for their various destinations. Sage thread, cherry twist and the difficult rill unaccountably forgotten, Emma, Miss Bates, Mrs Tidmarsh and Frank Churchill – the latter two arm in arm – turned their steps in the direction of Randalls so that they might share with Mrs. Weston all the details of their meeting with Mr Suckling. Mr Weston, on horseback, cantered ahead to inform his wife of their arrival. ‘We want no rubbed yellow dress and apron in our house!’ he cried.
Emma, walking with Miss Bates, listened to everything said around her, the anticipation of the ball now definitely set for two days hence, the repeated theme of Mr Suckling’s size and obliging manner, so unexpected, calling forth all Philomena and Frank’s store of wit, but she, herself, was silent. It was, in fact, a real pain for her to walk in such close proximity to a man about whom she knew such disgusting things. For the sake of the Westons, she must not divulge the truth of Frank’s nature, but she would do all in her power to avoid his company. So resolved, when they reached the turning to Randalls, she unhooked her arm from Miss Bates and, murmuring excuses, instructed them as firmly as possible to go on without her. They went – their high spirits needing further social outlet – but not before Mr Churchill had tried to take Mrs Knightley’s hand in farewell – and seen the hand snatched from him. They all saw it indeed, saw Emma’s confusion and flushed face but no one, not even Mrs Tidmarsh, who usually did not follow the rule of ignoring awkwardness, made any comment.
‘I wish he would go!’ thought Emma as she hurried along her solitary path, with the image of questioning eyes in front of her. ‘I wish he would take ship and go – go to Madagascar!’ she thought, identifying the furthest-distant point she had ever heard of.
Chapter 37
All Highbury’s attention was now focused on the weather; not that they had suddenly become especially interested in the growth of the wheat, turnips or spring corn, but that they wished this summer sun and mildness to last through the night of the Sucklings’ Ball.
Mr and Mrs Perry, Dr Hughes and Mrs Hughes, Mr and Mrs Ottway, Miss Ottway, Miss Caroline, Mr George, Mr Arthur, Mr William Cox, Miss Ann Cox – all had been invited, all talked of carriages, shawls and satins. At Abbey-Mill, Randalls and Hartfield, the conversation was much the same, with particular intensity at Hartfield where Mr Woodhouse’s decision as to whether he would attend or not depended entirely on the glass, the moon, and the rising damp. It was understood that those at the Vicarage believed that the weather would stay fair and, in order to bolster confidence in the Coles who, as hosts, bore a heavy responsibility for the comfort of their guests and had therefore ordered a fire in every room – ‘which will send us all to the devil’ as Mrs Elton was reported to have commented – spent all their time with Mr and Mrs Cole. This, at least, was the reason given for no further appearance by Mr Suckling, nor any sighting at all of Mrs Suckling. ‘A man of his size would not wish to stay long in the confin’d space of the Vicarage,’ as Mr Weston explained to anyone who cared to listen. It seemed that the ball must open the Suckling season for which the Crown meeting had been a false start.
Emma looked forward to the ball with a mixture of excitement and dread. The excitement was natural in a young lady who had a new dress to show off and so seldom was given the opportunity to dance in elegant circumstances (she had quite disavowed her previous estimation of the Coles as ‘tradespeople’ and ‘vulgar’). The dread arose out of a sensation, founded on nothing rational, but very strong all the same, that the ball would be a climax for many of her anxieties – about Frank, about Harriet, about Knightley.
‘My dear – you are so lovely – I have never seen you so lovely.’
Mr Knightley stood behind her as she surveyed herself in the long glass. The golden satin dress, with its violet trimmings, caught the bright lights in her hair, turned her skin whiter, made her smooth tight waist smaller. She could not but acknowledge she was beautiful and was glad of it. She leant forward to pick up her string of pearls.
‘I have something for you.’ Knightley opened an engraved box and held it out to her. ‘Our marriage was such a simple affair, so quick; but I would not have you any less impressive than Mrs Suckling,’ he smiled a little.
A necklace of three diamond stars gleamed on a bed of blue velvet. ‘There are single diamonds for your ears. They have not been worn since my mother died twenty-five years ago.’
As Emma did not speak but only looked, in truth, quite bewildered by the jewels, he lifted the necklace out and held it round Emma’s neck. ‘Remember,’ he whispered, ‘you are my wife and I am proud of you.’
Clasping the necklace, he lightly kissed her cheek and left the room.
Emma sat down, heart racing. What had he meant? There had been a portentousness in his words, ‘Remember, you are my wife,’ and choosing this night after more than eighteen months of marriage to give her these diamonds whose existence she had not even suspected! What did it mean? She could not make it out and yet it increased her nervous anticipation.
The gathering in Hartfield’s drawing-room, before the arrival of James with the carriage, had a theatrical air most unusual in that quiet country household. Only Mr Woodhouse, seated in his habitual place for he had decided to enjoy cards with Mrs Goddard rather than suffer the ball, presented an unchanged appearance. Mrs Tidmarsh and her stepson were already there when Emma descended. True to her word, Philomena was dressed as Boadicea in all but the feathers on her head which were dyed purple and were so tall as to nearly reach the ceiling. The purple matched her long velvet tunic which was topped with brass chain-mail. This had already caught the attention of Mr Woodhouse, who was so captivated by his guest (as a slave might have been tied to her chariot) that even this excess of costume was transformed under his admiring gaze. ‘See, Emma dear, Mrs Tidmarsh wears so many necklaces that it almost covers her dress! Is that not a fashion as yet unarrived in Highbury!’
Emma agreed that such generosity of decoration was unknown in Surry and could
say no more, for Philomena had seen the stars on her friend’s breast and could not contain her appreciative exclamations. ‘Who would wear more than one necklace if the one was such as that!’
So then Mr Knightley must explain their origin and Mr Woodhouse needed so much reassurance that they were not a new acquisition – although where he found this idea no one could understand – that Miss Bates was able to sidle in quite unnoticed. It was only Mr Tidmarsh’s polite welcome, ‘You are very fine, Miss Bates,’ that made them turn.
‘Who is that come in?’ asked Mr Woodhouse, a little querulous with so much to confuse the calm of his drawing-room.
‘It is Miss Bates, papa,’ Emma bent to her father, ‘dressed up to go to the ball.’
‘Oh dear – I am sure – Oh dear – Mr Woodhouse – Mrs Goddard here—’ began Miss Bates, for her old friend was already present. If she hoped by her usual fluster to distract attention from her costume, it was not to be.
‘Magnificent!’ Mr Knightley bowed gallantly.
‘I do declare, a bird of paradise!’ cried Mrs Tidmarsh and for certain there was a little silver feather on the top of Miss Bates’ turban.
‘Oh dear – may I be of assistance – Mr Woodhouse – so kind – perhaps I should not go – so far – so long—’
Emma could not help smiling a little at this since Miss Bates had shown an extraordinary determination to attend the ball – whether Mr Woodhouse came or not. ‘You cannot waste your brocade panels,’ she advised. ‘There will never be such an opportunity to give them an airing.’
‘So good to me – dear Mrs Knightley – if you are certain – Mr Woodhouse comfortable—’
It was certain that Mr Woodhouse could not be comfortable until he and Mrs Goddard were settled quietly at the card table so the party proceeded to the carriage. Here there was a small delay when it became clear that the ladies’ dresses and, in particular, Mrs Tidmarsh’s head-dress, needed more space than was available.
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