They were walking out one morning after breakfast, examining their grounds together, and making plans. Mr. Elton readily agreed with his wife.
"Exactly so. You are quite right, my love; you always are. But you do not consider - cherry-trees are six shillings apiece, and they do not come into bearing in the first season you know."
"Oh, but what does that signify? The sooner they do come into bearing, the sooner we will have cherries; and we do not care to make ourselves a proverb for shabbiness."
"Certainly not. But I believe we must be satisfied in making no plantings by the sweep this year. Lime-trees, you know, more properly belong to a large estate, like Donwell Abbey, or Hartfield."
"Donwell! I have nothing to say to that; I would never try to compare our little land with that great place, or all the pretensions of the Knightleys. You know very well my feelings on that subject. But Hartfield - I think the Vicarage can safely be said to be handsomer, if not larger, than that sad place. It is a great shame to see how Mr. John Knightley has allowed that fine old property to go positively to seed. I do suspect - though it is not above three times I have been to Hartfield since Isabella Knightley was its mistress - that they manage things very poorly there."
"Very true my love. Mr. John Knightley's business takes him too often to London. He is at home but half the time, and cannot be the interested proprietor his brother is, at Donwell. Donwell is a byword for perfection to be sure - I do quite envy Knightley's grounds and his crops, but I never see Hartfield without pity. Those ten children running riot there, little babies and great boys and girls, all shapes and sizes. They can hardly plant three peach trees without them being stripped of fruit at the first chance. A man with ten children cannot be a good gardener."
"To be sure. Nothing is worse than riotous children, I have no patience with them. Mrs. John does not have the way of controlling them, but then it is hard to know where to affix blame: she certainly has not such elegant children as ours. However, I do hope, Mr. E, that when you speak of envying Knightley, you mean his gardens only."
"To be sure. What else could I mean?" asked her husband, with a conscious smile.
"Now do not be sly my love; you know very well I mean his wife. I should never wish to bring her name between us, but at times the thought does come into my mind, I confess. I cannot help thinking of what is past."
"My dear Augusta," cried Mr. Elton, too experienced a husband by far not to know when a compliment was called for, and one that is accompanied by pretty sharp criticism of other people, too. "You cannot seriously suppose that I could envy him that domineering, proud wife! You know me better than that, I think. You are a woman who has no equal in Highbury, and no one can be more sensible of the fact than I."
Mrs. Elton smiled complacently, and waited for more, which did not come, as her husband, walking thoughtfully along the new sweep, her arm in his, returned instead to the subject of the plantations.
"But, my dear, about the orchards - I think that two at once may be a difficulty. We had better put in one this summer, and the other next year. It will be wiser."
"Oh, I daresay you are right," said Mrs. Elton, her mind flying away to other matters. "Besides, we might keep the place by the sweep clear in all events, for the statue-garden we will make with the trophies - may I call them? that we will bring back from the Continent."
"The Continent?" Mr. Elton stopped in his tracks and dropped her arm. "Good heavens, my dear Augusta, I must beg that you will give over thinking of that. Our means having lessened - we must tighten our belts for the next few years at the least. I have spent all my fortune in improvements you know, and much of yours; and it is impossible that we can live in any sort of style on my stipend only. I had hoped that when your uncle died he might leave his fortune to you and your children; it was a very great disappointment that he left everything to Selina."
"Yes, and she needing it not at all! It is too provoking. I cannot understand my uncle. He must have gone positively mad at the end."
"On the contrary, I comprehend his reasoning perfectly; he meant his estate to remain with the elder branch. Do not think I intend a reproach to you, Augusta. But the money would have been a very material consideration. I confess that I did depend upon it for our children; and now, without hope of any inheritance, we are forced upon our own devices - we must absolutely provide for ourselves. I dislike speaking of these matters to you - and you need feel no positive alarm. If we go on as we are, making no further improvements, and spending as little as may be, we will improve our fortunes in another half-dozen years, or perhaps ten."
"So we shall; that's certain. And then it will be time to think about Philip Augustus going to Oxford you know, and the girls' first season; and there will be other things. So really I do agree with you with all my heart, that we must economize, by all manner of means. We must begin almost at once. I assure you that next year we will do that very thing, just as soon as we return from Europe."
It was beginning to rain a little; and as they returned to the house, Mr. Elton endeavoured to make his wife understand, in terms as firm as they were bold, that there could be no Europe, not this year nor the next. "Perhaps when the children are grown up, my love; but if you wanted to go so extremely, we ought not to have built the greenhouse, or set up the barouche-landau. But you must have everything as fine as your sister."
"Oh, sell the carriage then, certainly, sell it," she cried, "if it will make it possible for us to go to Italy. We shall not need two carriages, you know, while we are from home; and I cannot bear the strawberry-coloured lining of our barouche, it is of all things the most disgusting. Have you not considered, Mr. E, how very cheap we will live? Why, we can retrench in Italy far better than we can here, where we have a position to maintain. Living is a mere nothing there. Two winters in Italy will make our fortune, I am very sure."
"But the expense of paying a curate," objected Mr. Elton.
"Very true, that's well thought of; but he need not live at the vicarage. Only think, he can take a room in the village there are some to let at the Crown, and I believe Mrs. Stokes' sister, or some person like that, will take in boarders for a mere nothing. And then we can rent the vicarage to a gentleman's family and turn a pretty penny."
"There is something to that," he said, consideringly. "I don't say there is not."
"But we must fix the orchard plantations first. No gentleman will rent a property that is a positive desert, you know."
"Perhaps not; but I still do not at all understand, my love, why you are so determined to be journeying. It is most uncomfortable, you must be aware, most. You have often heard me speak of my tour to Paris when I finished at the university - and what tedium it was, being such a long while in uncomfortable coaches, and the misery of crossing the water, and the muddy roads, and the unpleasantness of a foreign inn. You cannot conceive of the dirtiness of foreigners. The oily food is what you could not endure. And the children - being among French and Italians and such cattle, cannot be at all good for their health. No, Augusta, I believe we will have to wait until they are older, and we have more money, after all."
Mrs. Elton was not convinced.
CHAPTER TWO
Before her plans for an Italian tour were at all matured, or indeed, approved by her husband, Mrs. Elton felt a powerful longing to U communicate the intelligence of it to Mrs. Knightley. That lady had always irked her by an unspoken assumption of superiority, which was infuriatingly only too well founded; and it was of great satisfaction to Mrs. Elton to have lighted upon something in which she might for once flatter herself as being above Mrs. Knightley, who was no traveller.
Mrs. Elton and the great lady of Donwell Abbey were not on the most cordial of visiting terms. Mrs. Knightley went to considerable lengths to avoid any meeting with the vicar's wife, to whom she felt a very particular aversion; but with both living in the same village, and in the same society, with ties to the church and the regular intercourse of their husbands, complete avoidance was
not a possible thing; and when Emma saw Mrs. Elton's donkey-carriage bearing down upon the Donwell gates, she sighed and gave her companion a look of humorous resignation.
"It seems I am fated never to enjoy a quiet tête-à-tête with my dearest friend," she said. "It has been a week at least since I had you quite to myself, my dear Mrs. Weston, and now it is not to be after all."
"We are always so busy with the children," said Mrs. Weston with a smile. Emma had three sons, and Mrs. Weston had two daughters, and in addition to this increase they were at this moment awaiting the reception of another child, not one of their own but a visitor. Mr. Frank Churchill's daughter Jane, a motherless girl who spent much of her time with her father's family, and with her great-aunt, Miss Bates, was expected in Highbury almost any day.
"I did want to hear all about poor little Jane, and I dislike that we must have such a conversation with Mrs. Elton present," Emma complained.
"Never mind, my dear Emma," said Mrs. Weston consolingly. "We must try to recollect that the girl's mother was always a great favourite with Mrs. Elton, and she has a right to be warmly interested in the daughter."
Mrs. Weston was greyer and stouter now, ten years after Emma's marriage; but in spite of several deaths in the family, the latest that of her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Churchill, for whom she was still wearing black ribbons, she was yet a happy woman. It would be hard not to be so, she was sure, with such a husband as Mr. Weston. Though now nearly sixty, he was a hale and robust specimen of that age, and cheery and blithe in his spirits. In such a happy home, with the young affection of their daughters, and frequent visits from their son Frank, who, if a young widower, was also a very wealthy one, Mr. and Mrs. Weston had nothing to wish for, but that Frank should be soon married again.
Mrs. Elton was announced, and after she had seated herself and the state of their own, their husbands, and their respective children's healths were exchanged, her hearers were surprised to find the subject of young Jane Churchill's visit being hurried over. Mrs. Elton only wanted to establish that the girl had not yet come, so that she might hasten to open her darling project to her audience.
"Oh! this Highbury, how tiresome it is, the road is so vilely dusty, my bonnet and sunshade are positively caked. How glad I am that we are likely to be going somewhere soon, that is not so pitiful."
"Why, where are you going, Mrs. Elton?" asked Mrs. Weston civilly, since Emma seemed to be struggling with herself over whether or not to make answer to the contemning of the village.
"To Italy! There's for you, is that not news? Yes, yes, we shall be setting out quite soon, to see Florence, and Rome, and Verona, and such places; and I am sure we shall bring home presents for all our friends. You must place your order with me," she nodded vigorously.
She had her satisfaction; both hearers were duly astonished, and silent for a moment. "I thought Mr. Elton was determined not to go to the Continent - you have persuaded him, then?" Emma ventured.
Mrs. Elton looked as if this supposition was beneath notice. "Oh! That is all but done. He acknowledges that it will do very well for us to remove ourselves from Highbury for a year or two - for the sake of economy, and all that; and it will be the very best thing for the children's educations."
"You do not mean to take the children with you?" asked Mrs. Weston, with concern. "Why, Philip Augustus will be rather a handful in a journey, will he not? and Augusta Phillippa is hardly more than a baby. And then Selina is such a delicate child, too."
"To be sure, that is a consideration. Mr. Perry thinks poor darling Selina may almost be in a decline, her chest is so weak; but the balmy southern climes will be the very cure for her. It will be an education for Philip Augustus in especial he will grow so very cultured a young man! - and the dear little ones will have their attendants of course, just as they would at home. I can conceive no difficulty at all."
Mr. Weston came in, having walked to Donwell on purpose to fetch his wife, and he quickly caught the tendency of the conversation.
"And is Elton really going!" he cried. "That is news! What a fine thing for you all, to be sure - a change of climate, of scene, of everything. I quite envy you. I was recommending the same for Frank, was not I, Anne, my dear? Every body should go a-travelling, it keeps one young."
"If it does not kill you entirely, with the bad food and water, and dirt, and illnesses," said Emma with alarm. "I confess I have no wish to be travelling myself, and most particularly not with children. There are many dangers that ought to be considered." The older Emma grew, the more she showed that she was her father's daughter; and her disinclination for travel was by now firmly established.
"No, to be sure not; but then you were not brought up to it, as was the case with me," said Mrs. Elton, with a superior smile. "Why, as a girl, I was in constant motion between Bath and Bristol; and it gave me a taste for the sort of thing. What one is accustomed to, one appreciates. But I dare say Mr. Knightley will never desire his family to travel. He is so deeply rooted in this slow old place, after all. Why, you have scarcely been away from Highbury since your marriage. Your wedding tour was to the sea-side, I recollect."
"It was," said Emma, suppressing her indignation, "and we have taken the children there as well, you may also recall. Mr. Knightley is not at all averse to travelling; he thinks nothing of a trip to London, and I have accompanied him, more than once, I assure you, on a jaunt, though I am not at all fond of the city. But to travel abroad with little children - that is what I would never expose myself to. I believe you will find Mr. Perry agrees with me, that it is most unwise."
"But Italy! only think. The music, the statues, the mountains, the orange-groves," said the lady, clasping her hands in affected rapture. "And then travel widens the outlook, you know. I am sure we shall come back to Highbury with entirely new views of the world."
Her listeners displayed so little of the jealousy she hoped to excite, that Mrs. Elton, rather disappointed, took her leave, and drove her donkey-cart into the town, to spread her story to Miss Bates and Mrs. Cole. From them she hoped to receive a full measure of sympathy and envy - indeed, she only feared that Mrs. Cole would herself immediately project a Continental tour, in consequence, that might entirely eclipse the fame and éclat of her own.
Mr. Knightley came in from the farm soon after Mrs. Elton took her leave, and he had the news to hear. His wife and the Westons all spoke at once.
"Italy? - Absurd," was his response. "It is pure folly for Elton to be taking his family there. I expected better sense of him, and I will not believe it until I hear the story from himself. I am surprised that he should allow his wife to entertain such an idea, or suffer her to go about telling people of it."
"It is more likely that she gives the idea to him, I suspect," said Emma slyly.
"Yet, after all, and in some ways, their removing themselves would not be a bad thing," said Mr. Knightley thoughtfully.
"Mr. Knightley! I am surprised. You are generally such a resolute defender of the Eltons - I did not think you would express a wish to get rid of them, so openly."
"You mistake me, Emma. That is not what I mean. Elton is a respectable man and a very good Vicar of Highbury, and I have not an objection to him in the world. He is, perhaps, at fault, upon occasion, in not controlling his wife; but that cannot be the easiest duty in the world, governing either her spending or her tongue."
"Do you mean that the Eltons are in difficulties, Mr. Knightley?" inquired Mrs. Weston.
Her husband had come in while they were talking. "To be sure they are, my dear," he confirmed. "Why, don't you know? Elton has been talking to me and Cole, of that very thing. That greenhouse and the alterations to the Vicarage cost a pretty penny. He has overspent himself, as we all are tempted to do, to be sure, and now must pay the price. He thinks of going abroad to repair."
"How shocking that they cannot live within their income!" said Emma complacently, "and it is all her fault, I am quite convinced. However, I should not think that Italy would be the p
lace for Mrs. Elton to learn economy."
"It is not," Mr. Knightley agreed, "nor shall it be. I have a proposition for our friend Mr. Elton, that I believe will be a much more suitable thing; and while his wife is out of the way making calls, will be the very time to broach it to him."
His hearers all begged to be told what it was.
"Only this. There is a new field for church workers opening in America, and today I have received a letter from a missionary group that is hoping to employ several clergymen. This group is in Boston, but I believe they send ministers out to all the various States and to the territories as well - some to convert the Indians."
"Indians! Only fancy Mrs. Elton among the Red Indians!" breathed Emma, much diverted.
"And with her little children," said Mrs. Weston, distressed. "Surely, Mr. Knightley, that would be most unsafe."
"Elton would most probably be settled in Boston, where he and his family would be as essentially comfortable as in Highbury itself, and live within such means as still remain to him," proceeded Mr. Knightley, thoughtfully, "though to be sure, the farther regions would not do amiss in some ways. The prairies are said to be very healthy for chest complaints."
"And little Selina's chest is weak, I know," murmured Mrs. Weston, "like my little Emily's. The greatest care must be taken of such children."
"The prairies!" said Mr. Weston eagerly. "What an adventure! I wish we could go ourselves, Anne, do not you? Emma, should you not like to venture? To see an Indian or two?"
"Don't talk of it, I beg, Mr. Weston," said his wife with a shudder. "Leave Highbury and go among the Indians, of all outlandish things! I pray you do not mean it."
"Oh, not I, not I. Have no fear. But Elton is a younger man, and a clergyman, like himself, can do much of good in America."
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