menu_book Chapter 12

volume one chapter twelve of emma by jane austen this librivox recording is in the public domain volume one chapter twelve mr knightley was to dine with them rather against the inclination of mr woodhouse who did not like that any one should share with him in isabella's first day emma's sense of right however had decided it and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother she had particular pleasure from the circumstance of the late disagreement between mr knightley and herself in procuring him the proper invitation she hoped they might now become friends again she thought it was time to make up making up indeed would not do she certainly had not been in the wrong and he would never own that he had concession must be out of the question but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever quarrelled and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of friendship that when he came into the room she had one of the children with her

the youngest a nice little girl about eight months old who was now making her first visit to hartfield and very happy to be danced about in her aunt's arms it did assist for though he began with grave looks and short questions he was soon led on to talk of them all in the usual way and to take the child out of her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity emma felt they were friends again and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction and then a little sauciness she could not help saying as he was admiring the baby what a comfort it is that we think alike about our nephews and nieces as to men and women our opinions are sometimes very different but with regard to these children i observe we never disagree if you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with them as you are where these children are concerned we might always think alike

to be sure our discordances must always arise from my being in the wrong yes said he smiling and reason good i was sixteen years old when you were born a material difference then she replied and no doubt you are much my superior in judgment at that period of our lives but does not the lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer yes a good deal nearer but still not near enough to give me a chance of being right if we think differently i have still the advantage of you by sixteen years experience and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child come my dear emma let us be friends and say no more about it tell your aunt little emma that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances and that if she were not wrong before she is now that's true she cried very true little emma grow up a better woman than your aunt be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited now mr knightley a word or two more and i have done as far as good intentions went we were both right and i must say that no effects on my side of the argument have yet proved wrong i only want to know that mr martin is not very very bitterly disappointed

a man cannot be more so was his short full answer ah indeed i am very sorry come shake hands with me this had just taken place and with great cordiality when john knightley made his appearance and how do you do george john how are you succeeded in the true english style varying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference the real attachment which would have led either of them if requisite to do everything for the good of the other the evening was quiet and conversable as mr woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear isabella and the little party made two natural divisions on one side he and his daughter on the other the two mr knightleys their subjects totally distinct or very rarely mixing and emma only occasionally joining in one or the other the brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits but principally of those of the elder whose temper was by much the most communicative and who was always the greater talker

as a magistrate he had generally some point of law to consult john about or at least some curious anecdote to give and as a farmer as keeping in hand the home farm at donwell he had to tell what every field was to bear next year and to give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his life and whose attachments were strong the plan of a drain the change of a fence the felling of a tree and the destination of every acre for wheat turnips or spring corn was entered into with as much equality of interest by john as his cooler manners rendered possible and if his willing brother ever left him anything to inquire about his inquiries even approached a tone of eagerness while they were thus comfortably occupied mr woodhouse was enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter my poor dear isabella said he fondly taking her hand and interrupting for a few moments her busy labors for some one of her five children

how long it is how terribly long since you were here and how tired you must be after your journey you must go to bed early my dear and i recommend a little gruel to you before you go you and i will have a nice basin of gruel together my dear emma suppose we all have a little gruel emma could not suppose any such thing knowing as she did that both the mr knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself and two basins only were ordered after a little more discourse in praise of gruel with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by everybody he proceeded to say with an air of grave reflection it was an awkward business my dear your spending the autumn at south end instead of coming here i never had much opinion of the sea air mr wingfield most strenuously recommended it sir or we should not have gone he recommended it for all the children but particularly for the weakness in little bella's throat both sea air and bathing

ah my dear but perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any good and as to myself i have been long perfectly convinced though perhaps i never told you so before that the sea is very rarely of use to anybody i am sure it almost killed me once come come cried emma feeling this to be an unsafe subject i must beg you not to talk of the sea it makes me envious and miserable i who have never seen it south end is prohibited if you please my dear isabella i have not heard you make one inquiry about mr perry yet and he never forgets you o good mr perry how is he sir why pretty well but not quite well poor perry is bilious and he has not time to take care of himself he tells me he has not time to take care of himself which is very sad but he is always wanted all round the country i suppose there is not a man in such a practice anywhere but then there is not so clever a man anywhere and mrs perry and the children how are they do the children grow i have a great regard for mr perry i hope he will be calling soon he will be so pleased to see my little ones

i hope he will be here to-morrow for i have a question or two to ask him about myself of some consequence and my dear whenever he comes you had better let him look at little bella's throat oh my dear sir her throat is so much better that i have hardly any uneasiness about it either bathing has been of the greatest service to her or else it has been attributed to an excellent imbrication of mr wingfield's which we have been applying at times ever since august it is not very likely my dear that bathing should have been of use to her and if i had known you were wanting an embrocation i would have spoken too you seem to me to have forgotten mrs and miss bates said emma i have not heard one inquiry after them oh the good bateses i am quite ashamed of myself but you mention them in most of your letters i hope they are quite well good old mrs bates i will call upon her to-morrow and take my children they are always so pleased to see my children and that excellent miss bates such thorough worthy people how are they sir sir why pretty well my dear upon the whole but poor miss bates had a bad cold about a month ago

how sorry i am but colds were never so prevalent as they have been this autumn mr wingfield told me that he has never known them to be more general or heavy except when it has been quite an influenza that has been a good deal the case my dear but not to the degree you mention perry says that colds have been very general but not so heavy as he has very often known them in november perry does not call it altogether a sickly season no i do not know that mr wingfield considers it very sickly except-ah my poor dear child the truth is that in london it is always a sickly season nobody is healthy in london nobody can be it is a dreadful thing to have you forced to live there so far off and the air is so bad no indeed we are not at all in a bad air our part of london is very superior to most others you must not confound us with london in general my dear sir

the neighbourhood of brunswick square is very different from almost all the rest we are so very airy i should be unwilling i own to live in any other part of the town there is hardly any other that i could be satisfied to have my children in but we are so remarkably airy mr wingfield thinks the vicinity of brunswick square decidedly the most favourable as to air ah my dear does not like hartfield you make the best of it but after you have been a week at hartfield you are all of you different creatures you do not look like the same now i cannot say that i think you are any of you looking well at present i am sorry to hear you say so sir but i assure you excepting those little nervous headaches and palpitations which i am never entirely free from anywhere i am quite well myself and if the children were rather pale before they went to bed it was only because they were a little more tired than usual from their journey and the happiness of coming i hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow for i assure you mr wingfield told me that he did not believe he ever sent us off altogether in such good case i trust at least that you do not think mr knightley looking ill

turning her eyes with affectionate anxiety towards her husband midling my dear i cannot compliment you i think mr john knightley very far from looking well what is the matter sir did you speak to me cried mr john knightley hearing his own name i am sorry to find my love that my father does not think you looking well but i hope it is only from being a little fatigued i could have wished however as you know that you had seen mr wingfield before you left home my dear isabella exclaimed he hastily pray do not concern yourself about my looks be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children and let me look as i choose i did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother cried emma about your friend mr graham's intending to have a bailiff from scotland to look after his new estate what will it answer will not the old prejudice be too strong and she talked in this way so long and successfully that when forced to give her attention again to her father and sister she had nothing worse to hear than isabella's kind inquiry after jane fairfax

and jane fairfax though no great favourite with her in general she was at that moment very happy to assist in praising that sweet amiable jane fairfax said mrs john knightley it is so long since i have seen her except now and then for a moment accidentally in town what happiness it must be to her good old grandmother and excellent aunt when she comes to visit them i always regret excessively on dear emma's account that she cannot be more at highbury but now their daughter is married i suppose colonel and mrs campbell will not be able to part with her at all she would be such a delightful companion for emma mr woodhouse agreed to it all but added our little friend harriet smith however is just such another pretty kind of young person you will like harriet emma could not have a better companion than harriet i am most happy to hear it but only jane fairfax one knows to be so very accomplished and superior and exactly emma's age

this topic was discussed very happily and others succeeded of similar moment and passed away with similar harmony but the evening did not close without a little return of agitation a gruel came and supplied a great deal to be said much praise and many comments undoubting decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution and pretty severe philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with tolerable but unfortunately among the failures which the daughter had to instance the most recent and therefore most prominent was in her own cook at south end a young woman hired for the time who never had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth gruel thin but not too thin often as she had wished for and ordered it she had never been able to get anything tolerable here was a dangerous opening ah said mr woodhouse shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her with tender concern the ejaculation in emma's ear expressed ah

there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to south end it does not bear talking of and for a little while she hoped he would not talk of it and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to the relish of his own smooth gruel after an interval of some minutes however he began with i shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn instead of coming here but why should you be sorry sir i assure you it did the children a great deal of good and moreover if you must go to the sea it had better not have been to south end south end is an unhealthy place perry was surprised to hear you had fixed upon south end i know there is such an idea with many people but indeed it is quite a mistake sir we all had our health perfectly well there never found the least inconvenience from the mud and mr winkfield says it is entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy

and i am sure he may be dependent upon for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air and his own brother and family have been there repeatedly you should have gone to cromer my dear if you went anywhere perry was a week at cromer once and he holds it to be the best of all the sea-bathing places a fine open sea he says and very pure air and by what i understand you might have had lodgings there quite away from the sea a quarter of a mile off very comfortable you should have consulted perry but my dear sir the difference of the journey only consider how great it would have been an hundred miles perhaps instead of forty ah my dear as perry says where health is at stake nothing else should be considered and if one is to travel there is not much to choose between forty miles and an hundred

better not move at all better stay in london altogether than travel forty miles to get into worse air this is just what perry said it seemed to him a very ill-judged measure emma's attempts to stop her father had been vain and when he had reached such a point as this she could not wonder at her brother-in-law's breaking out mr perry said he in a voice of very strong displeasure would do as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for why does he make it any business of his to wonder at what i do at my taking my family to one part of the coast or another i may be allowed i hope the use of my judgment as well as mr perry i want his directions no more than his drugs he paused and growing cooler in a moment added with only sarcastic dryness if mr perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty i should be as willing to prefer cromer to south end as he could himself

true true cried mr knightley with most ready interposition very true that's a consideration indeed but john as to what i was telling you of my idea of moving the path to langham of turning it more to the right that it may not cut through the home meadows i cannot conceive any difficulty i should not attempt it if it were to be the means of inconvenience to the highbury people but if you call to mind exactly the present line of the path the only way of proving it however will be to turn to our maps i shall see you at the abbey to-morrow morning i hope and then we will look them over and you shall give me your opinion mr woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend parry to whom he had in fact though unconsciously been attributing many of his own feelings and expressions but the soothing attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil and the immediate alertness of one brother and better recollections of the other prevented any renewal of it chapter twelve