Emma: A Modern Retelling

8

‘There’s nobody of your own age,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘And yet you’ve put all this effort into this. It really is impressive.’

Emma had certainly worked hard, but there was somebody of her own age, as she reminded him. ‘Harriet Smith is coming. Remember? She’s my age.’

‘Of course. I’d forgotten about her.’

‘And then there’s George Knightley,’ said Emma.

Mr Woodhouse nodded. ‘Of course, but then he’s my friend, isn’t he? I don’t really think of him as your friend too … and yet, I suppose he could be.’ He directed an enquiring glance towards his daughter. ‘You do like him, don’t you? I’ve never asked you.’

Emma shrugged. ‘Yes, I like him. He’s just … well, he’s just Mr Knightley, isn’t he?’

‘But you don’t call him that any more, do you? You used to, but not now.’

‘I call him George. He’s not all that older than me, I suppose.’

Mr Woodhouse agreed. ‘No. A dozen years isn’t all that much of an age gap, although I suppose it can be when you’re very young.’

‘Well, he’s much younger than you, isn’t he?’ Emma pointed out. ‘What’s the age gap between you and him? Twenty years?’

‘If I’m fifty-one this year,’ said Mr Woodhouse, ‘and he’s thirty-four – seventeen years. Mind you, I never think of George’s age. He’s one of these people who doesn’t really have an age. Do you know what I mean?’

Emma did. ‘There are some people with whom it doesn’t really seem to matter,’ she said. ‘You talk to them without thinking about age.’

‘So when you were born,’ said Mr Woodhouse, ‘George was eleven or twelve.’ He paused, and looked at his daughter with affected curiosity. ‘You are twenty-two, aren’t you?’

‘If you don’t know that, Pops,’ said Emma, ‘then we shall have to have you tested to see if you’ve lost the plot. You do know who the Prime Minister of this country is, I hope. Do you? Isn’t that the test the doctors use?’

Mr Woodhouse pretended to search his memory. ‘I’m not one hundred per cent sure,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you it’s not Tony Blair.’

Emma laughed. ‘So you see there are two people who are more or less my contemporaries, and then …’

‘Poor Miss Bates. Poor James Weston. Poor Philip Elton.’ He looked at Emma. ‘Have you decided on the placements? It’s always so difficult.’

‘I shall put myself at one head of the table,’ said Emma. ‘As hostess, if you don’t object.’

He inclined his head. ‘It’s your house.’

‘And next to me, on my right, I shall place … now let me think. I shall not have Philip Elton: I couldn’t bear that. I’m prepared to do my duty for England and so on, but to sit next to him, frankly, is too much. So I shall have James Weston, who’s quite good-looking, for fifty-something, and at least is not dead boring. Then on his right, which will be your left, I suppose, we shall have Miss Taylor. I’d rather like James to talk to Miss Taylor, I think.’

Mr Woodhouse raised an eyebrow. ‘Why? Do you think they have much to say to each other?’

‘I do. They’re both intelligent people. She can talk about anything, and so she should find some subject that they have in common. We can leave that up to them, I think. One doesn’t want to have too much of an agenda, don’t you think?’

‘I have none,’ said Mr Woodhouse.

‘And then on your right, we shall have to put Miss Bates. I’m sorry about that, but I don’t see where else we can put her, unless you want to sit next to Philip Elton, which I would wish on you less than I would wish Miss Bates.’

‘I’m perfectly happy to sit next to her,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘She has some interesting anecdotes: it’s just a question of separating the wheat from the chaff. And as for Philip, there’s nothing much wrong with him.’

‘No, you’re right,’ said Emma. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Philip Elton – except for his personality, his attitudes, his conversation, and his views on all possible subjects.’

Mr Woodhouse sighed. ‘You can be very uncharitable, Emma.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I feel so bad about it. I shall try to do better.’ She smiled at her father. ‘What did St Augustine say? Make me good and chaste, but just not yet?’

He ignored this. He did not see what St Augustine had to do with it. ‘Miss Bates will sit next to Philip?’ he asked.

‘Yes. And that will leave Harriet Smith, this new person, sitting next to me. I shall be able to find out all about her. The whole story. It will be very interesting. And she can also talk to George – I’ll put him between them.’

There was a large drawing room at Hartfield in which the guests that evening were offered glasses of wine and canapés before dinner. Emma had prepared the canapés herself, with Mrs Firhill offering them round. The evening was a warm one, and the late May sun was still shining, penetrating the French doors that opened on to the lawn outside, filling that side of the room with a warm glow. As Emma sipped on her glass of English wine, she glanced in the direction of Harriet Smith, who was engaged in conversation with Miss Bates, with whom she had arrived, and with Philip Elton. Harriet had been a pleasant surprise; Emma had expected somebody rather mousy, even dowdy – an expectation that had something to do with the name, Harriet Smith, which she found curiously old-fashioned. And yet Harriet could not have been more different, at least in respect of her looks, which were anything but dowdy. She was about the same height as Emma – which was on the tallish side – and had very similar colouring, which was sandy-coloured hair and a pale, almost translucent skin. But whereas Emma’s eyes were hazel, Harriet Smith’s were blue, of an intensity so striking that they seemed to overshadow every other aspect of her appearance. She had, Emma decided, a very particular beauty about her, a quality that required more than the possession of conventionally attractive features. Good looks could be a cliché, which meant that those who satisfied the normal criteria of beauty could fail its more more subtle tests. Thus it was that those with very regular features could just miss being beautiful because they lacked some tiny human imperfection, some irregularity that imparted to their appearance the poignancy, the reminder of ordinary humanity, on which real beauty depended. It was quite possible to be too perfect, and end up being plastic, as Hollywood stars so often were, with their well-placed curves or sculpted chins. The heart would not stop at such features, whereas it might well do so when a snub nose, or one not quite dead-centre, or ears that were just slightly too large, were combined with eyes that seem to reflect and enhance the light, or with lips that formed a tantalising bow, or with perfectly unblemished skin. That was beauty, thought Emma, of the sort possessed by that boy in Bath who had too many freckles, but whose eyes were wide and had a constant look of surprise in them.

Emma was conscious that Harriet Smith was having an unexpected effect on her. She had been curious about their new guest, but had not imagined that her curiosity could give rise to this sudden, quite intense interest. This quickening was not entirely novel; she had felt it before, and it was familiar. But what surprised her was that she had always had this feeling for men, not for women. For a moment she allowed herself the thought, guilty and unwelcome, that her interest in Harriet was of the same nature, but it was not, she said to herself; of course it was not. She had never felt that about women, and would not now. She had mistaken her feelings, she decided; this was simply excitement at meeting somebody new, somebody who might enliven her uneventful life at Hartfield; it was nothing more than that.

Emma was not interested in men in quite the same way in which some of her contemporaries at university had been. There had been boyfriends in Bath, but nothing very serious, and she had not been particularly taken with the experience. ‘Overrated,’ she had remarked to a friend. ‘OK, I suppose, but not something one would go out of one’s way for.’ The friend had looked at her in astonishment, and had said, ‘What planet are you on, Emma?’ To which Emma had replied, ‘Same as you, but perhaps at a higher level.’

She was staring at Harriet, and made an effort to stop herself. Harriet had now turned away from Philip and was looking in Emma’s direction. Emma made a beckoning motion, and Harriet, muttering something to Miss Bates and Philip, detached herself and came over to join her.

‘It’s so kind of you to invite me,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ve seen your house from a distance and wondered about it. I saw you, too.’

Emma’s eyes widened. ‘And wondered about me?’

‘Not really,’ said Harriet. ‘Well, I suppose I wondered a bit. What you were like, and so on. I’d heard people say …’ She stopped herself.

‘Go on,’ said Emma. ‘You’ve heard people say what?’

Harriet giggled nervously. ‘That you’re very bright. That you’re witty.’

Emma reached out and touched Harriet gently on the forearm. ‘Idle gossip, Harriet. You know how people make up these things.’

‘But I’m sure it’s true,’ said Harriet. ‘I also heard that you have a degree in art.’

‘Design,’ corrected Emma.

‘I’d never get anywhere near a university,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ve got one A level, and it’s a C in drama.’

‘Winston Churchill had none,’ said Emma. ‘Not even one in drama.’

‘Really? I thought to be Prime Minister you had to be really clever.’

Emma gazed at Harriet with growing affection. She found naïvety attractive, and here was somebody who said things like I thought to be Prime Minister you had to be really clever. ‘What are you doing at Mrs Goddard’s?’ she asked. ‘Are you teaching English to foreign students?’

Harriet shook her head. ‘I’m not qualified to do that,’ she said. ‘No, I’m a sort of extra in the role-playing they do. They have to do it as part of their course. There are little plays, like Going to the Bank, where I pretend to be the teller. Or Making an Enquiry at the Station, where I have to pretend to be the person at the ticket counter.’

‘It must be interesting,’ said Emma.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Harriet. ‘I don’t hate it, but it’s boring. Can you imagine sitting there while a seventeen-year-old boy asks you for a ticket to Newcastle? Can you?’

‘No,’ said Emma. ‘I can’t.’

There was something that puzzled Emma: why did Harriet do this if she disliked it so much? ‘Do you have to?’ she asked.

‘I do it to help Mrs Goddard,’ said Harriet. ‘She’s been kind to me, and I need to have somewhere to live before I go on my gap year.’

‘Ah,’ said Emma. It made sense to her now.

‘I want to go travelling next year,’ said Harriet. ‘I want to go to Thailand and Indonesia. But I haven’t got any money and at least I can stay at Mrs Goddard’s for nothing. I manage to save all the money I get. I’ll have enough for a gap year in about ten months’ time.’

‘She pays you?’ asked Emma.

‘A little. But I get a small amount from … from somewhere else. I save all of that.’

Emma wanted to ask what this source of money was, but her father had now cleared his throat and pointed to the dining-room door. ‘Emma,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time.’

‘So kind of you,’ said Miss Bates. ‘So few people hold dinner parties these days. I think that social habits are changing, you know. People used to have the time, but now we’re all so busy that there just isn’t time to do it. Except this evening, of course.’

‘The credit is entirely Emma’s,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘She is the one who had the idea.’

‘Well, Emma,’ said Miss Bates, ‘I’m sure I speak for the entire gathering in saying that we’re most grateful that you arranged this. And on such a lovely evening, too, with that sun still shining out there, warming us even at this hour when—’

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘Thank you.’

They went into the dining room, where they found their names written out carefully on pieces of card at their places. ‘Such a nice touch,’ said Miss Bates. ‘It’s so helpful to know where to sit.’

Emma caught Harriet’s eye, and smiled.

‘I’m glad I’m sitting next to you,’ said Harriet. ‘Thank you.’

Emma was not sure what to make of this. Was Harriet expressing relief at not being next to Miss Bates, or was there something else behind the remark?

‘That’s fine,’ said Emma. ‘It’s not a big table.’ She turned to James Weston on her right and complimented him on the pattern of his waistcoat.

‘It matches one of the sofas at Randalls,’ he said.

‘What clever camouflage,’ said Emma. ‘You could pass unnoticed in your own home!’

He laughed, and then turned to Miss Taylor. Emma tried to hear what he said to her, but Miss Bates was in the midst of making some remark in a moderately loud voice and she did not catch James’s remark. But she did hear what Miss Taylor said in reply, which was: ‘It would be very nice to meet Frank one day.’

She assumed that they were talking about Frank Churchill. Like Miss Taylor, she had never met Frank, but had heard all about him and had seen his picture in a silver frame at Randalls. She was struck – as everybody else had been – by how gorgeous he was, and intrigued by his story; there was something undeniably romantic about being given away and then taken off to Western Australia. Had James raised the possibility of a visit from Frank? She decided to ask.

‘No,’ replied James. ‘There is no immediate plan for Frank to come, but I believe that he might. Just might. That’s all.’

Mrs Firhill brought in the first course: Parma ham laid out on a plate with asparagus spears and quails’ eggs.

‘I love quails,’ said Harriet, surveying her plate. ‘They’re the most adorable little birds. They look as if they’re made out of china and somebody’s painted them. And their eggs are so sweet. Cutissimo.’

Emma wondered whether she should tell Harriet about Italian plurals, but decided against it; the Italian plural – and gender – was a lost cause in England, where people ordered cappuccinos without shame and shouted bravo! rather than brava! when applauding a soprano. She looked again at Harriet – a quick look of appraisal. No, she would not raise the issue.

‘Yes,’ she said, reverting to the safer territory occupied by quails. ‘Quails are very cute. They really are.’

Harriet nodded. ‘So cute. Very tiny.’

Emma thought that this conversation would be a difficult one to conduct with anybody other than Harriet, with anybody … less beautiful. Somehow, beauty made a difference; a trite remark uttered by a beautiful person is not quite as trite as the same thing said by one less blessed.

‘I’d love to keep quails,’ said Emma. ‘Perhaps I could talk to Sid about it. He helps us on the farm. He probably knows a bit about quails.’

Harriet brightened. ‘Oh, that would be such fun. Could I come round and see your quails?’

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘But perhaps wait until we get them.’

‘Oh, I would,’ said Harriet.

Emma, feeling that she had exhausted the possibilities of quails, said, ‘Do you mind if I ask you about something you said before we came in to dinner?’

‘Of course not.’

‘You said you got a small amount of money from somewhere else. You said you were saving it towards your gap year.’

Harriet speared a slice of quail’s egg on her fork and dipped it into the small pile of Maldon salt at the edge of the plate. ‘Yes. It’s not very much, though.’

‘Is it an allowance?’ asked Emma.

‘Sort of.’

Emma waited for her to continue, but Harriet appeared to have said as much as she intended to say on the topic.

‘From your parents?’ asked Emma.

Harriet put down her fork. The question seemed to have disturbed her, and Emma regretted asking it. ‘No, sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked you.’

Harriet shook her head. ‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I trust you. I don’t mind your asking. I don’t have any parents, or not parents in the accepted sense of the word. I do have a father, though. The money comes from him.’

‘So it is an allowance,’ said Emma.

‘You could say that. But actually, I don’t know who he is.’

Emma watched her intently. ‘Oh, I see.’

‘It’s not what you think,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s different.’

She seemed agitated, and Emma felt she should change the subject. She leaned to her side in order to be able to whisper to Harriet. ‘Who do you think would make a very obvious couple here?’ she said.

Harriet looked about her.

‘Miss Taylor and … your father?’

Emma drew in her breath. ‘Naughty! No. Miss Taylor and …’

‘The vicar chap on my left? What’s his name? Philip …’ whispered Harriet.

‘Elton. No, not him,’ said Emma.

‘You and George Knightley?’ asked Harriet, giggling.

Emma looked down the table to where George was sitting. He was half-turned away from her and so she saw only his profile. It was a ridiculous suggestion: George Knightley was … well, he was just George Knightley.

‘He’s very good-looking,’ Harriet continued. ‘I’d love to put him on my mantelpiece.’

Emma’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘I’m only joking. I don’t think he’d fit on a mantelpiece. It would be rather hard to sit on a mantelpiece without falling off.’

Emma gave her a scornful look. ‘You really aren’t very perceptive,’ she said. ‘George was the last person I was thinking about.’

Harriet accepted the criticism passively. ‘No, I suppose I’m not all that perceptive. You are, though. I bet you are.’

Emma whispered even more quietly now. ‘Miss Taylor and James Weston,’ she said. ‘He’s not all that much older than she is and I think – and this is just my view, of course – that he’s actually quite sexy. Still.’

‘But is that what she wants?’ asked Harriet.

‘Of course,’ said Emma. ‘Sometimes people don’t know what they want.’ She paused, placing a finger to her lip in a gesture of silence and complicity. ‘And so we have to show them.’

‘I’m not sure that I know what I want,’ muttered Harriet.

‘Then allow me to show you,’ said Emma.