Emma: A Modern Retelling

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Shortly after her seventeenth birthday, it was decided that Isabella should not remain at school any longer. Most of her contemporaries were to spend a further year at Gresham’s, but in Isabella’s case it was felt that there was no point in persuading her to study for examinations that she had no desire to sit and that she would evidently not pass. She wanted to go to live in London and find work there. She had met somebody on a train who said that she could find her a job with a firm of fine-art auctioneers that specialised in providing employment for the daughters of county families. She would not be paid very much, she was warned, but that was not the point; she had a regular income from her mother’s estate that would be more than enough to pay the rent and ordinary living expenses, and her father, she felt, would provide for any luxuries. London, with its plays and its parties, beckoned; it was as if its lights, bright and seductive, penetrated into the country even as far as Hartfield itself, lighting the winding way to the distant city.

  Mr Woodhouse, of course, felt that London was highly dangerous.

  ‘I cannot understand,’ he said to his daughters when Isabella first mentioned her desire to go there. ‘I just cannot understand how anybody would wish to live in London. I can see why people might wish to go in for the day – to see what’s on at the Royal Academy or the Science Museum or whatever. Perhaps even to do a bit of shopping. But to live there?’ He shook his head in disbelief at the inexplicable nature of such a choice.

  ‘But …’ began Isabella.

  She did not get far. ‘The very air is sixth-hand,’ continued Mr Woodhouse. ‘Just think of it: when you breathe in places like London you’re taking in air that has already been in and out of goodness knows how many lungs.’

  ‘Twelve,’ said Emma. ‘Strictly speaking – if each person has two lungs and the air is sixth-hand.’

  ‘Well, there you are,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘Twelve lungs. Imagine the microbial load, and the viruses …’

  ‘But viruses are everywhere, Father,’ said Isabella. ‘We learned that in biology at school. Miss Parkinson – you should have seen her.’

  Emma giggled. ‘Old bag.’

  ‘A very good teacher, I believe,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘And obviously aware of viruses – which is a good thing.’

  Isabella smiled. ‘She said that we need to be exposed to a few viruses in order to build up our immune system. She said that the rise in the number of people with allergies is partly to do with the fact that everybody is eating over-purified food.’

  ‘Should we eat dirty things?’ asked Emma. ‘Should we wash the crockery maybe only once or twice a week?’

  Mr Woodhouse tried to smile at this suggestion, but he found the whole discussion acutely painful: one should not talk about microbes lightly, he felt; it was an invitation to disaster. Of course microbes could not hear what they were saying, but it seemed somehow foolish to talk about them as if they were not there.

  ‘There may be a smidgeon of truth in what Miss Parkinson says,’ he conceded. ‘You do need to be exposed to a certain level of microbial activity, but London goes way, way beyond that.’ He paused. ‘No, I cannot see living in London as anything but foolhardy. Theatres and museums are all very well …’

  ‘And parties,’ added Isabella.

  Mr Woodhouse glanced at her, but ignored the provocation. ‘These things may be all very well, but what if you’re in such a wretched condition that you can’t enjoy them? What then?’

  ‘They look fine to me,’ said Isabella. ‘There are loads of people at Gresham’s whose parents live in London – or work there – and they seem fine to me.’

  Mr Woodhouse shook his head. ‘The air is far healthier out here,’ he said. ‘And if you lived in London, young lady, you’d know all about it. You’d have a streaming cold 24/7, as you people like to say. And you’d be running the risk of much worse, believe me. If the water’s been through however many sets of kidneys … No, don’t make that face, this is science I’m talking about. If London water has been through all those systems …’

  ‘Through boys’ systems too,’ contributed Emma.

  Isabella smiled. She did not object to that.

  ‘If London water has had that experience,’ continued Mr Woodhouse, ‘then what’s the chance of at least some viruses escaping the attention of the chlorine, and, I believe, ammonia they dose the stuff with? What about hepatitis? That’s water-borne, as I think I’ve told you in the past.’

  ‘Hepatitis turns you yellow,’ said Emma.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Woodhouse, glancing at Isabella. She did not take these things seriously enough, he felt, and shock tactics were sometimes necessary to emphasise a point. ‘A fact worth remembering.’

  There were several such conversations about the dangers of London, but it seemed that none of them had much impact on Isabella’s desire to move there as soon as possible. Mr Woodhouse agonised over this in private, but also raised the subject with Miss Taylor.

  ‘She seems dead set on going off to London,’ he said as they walked together one evening in the shrubbery. ‘I’ve talked to her about it, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other with that girl. In fact, I’m not sure that it even goes in one ear at all. I think that a lot of what I say is completely ignored. Emma’s quite different, of course – she listens to what I have to say, but her sister …’

  ‘Her sister is a very different girl,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘We all know that.’

  ‘I can’t understand it,’ said Mr Woodhouse, shaking his head with exasperation. ‘They have the same DNA.’

  ‘Not quite the same,’ corrected Miss Taylor. ‘They share some DNA but they have their own genes. They’re not identical twins.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘But they come from the same background and at least they have the same broad genetic inheritance, and yet …’

  Miss Taylor reached out and placed a calming hand on his arm. ‘Isabella is more physical,’ she said. ‘It’s as simple as that. In fact, I’m sorry to have to say this, but there’s only one thought in her head at the moment: the opposite sex.’

  The words the opposite sex were carefully enunciated – as if she were speaking with gloves on – and uttered in a slightly disapproving Scottish accent. The effect was electric.

  ‘Boys?’

  Miss Taylor nodded. ‘Isabella is interested in boys. They are all she thinks about. They, I’m afraid to say, are her destiny.’

  He fell silent. He did not like to think about the implications of what the governess had said. Was this the reason why one had daughters – to hand them over to be seduced by lascivious boys? He shuddered. He did not want the world to claim his girls. He wanted them to stay with him forever, in the security – or at least the relative security – of Hartfield. Let the outside world do its worst, but let it do it outside, and not within the curtilage of this agreeable old house and these gentle acres.

  ‘We need to marry her off,’ he muttered.

  Miss Taylor frowned. ‘I didn’t think people spoke in those terms any more.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘The fact of the matter is that I have a daughter who is going to get herself involved in all sorts of affairs if we don’t.’ He hesitated, looking at Miss Taylor as if for advance confirmation of what he was about to say. ‘That will happen unless we find a husband for her as soon as possible.’

  ‘But Isabella’s only seventeen,’ protested Miss Taylor. ‘She hasn’t really lived yet.’

  ‘Many people get married at eighteen or nineteen,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘The average might be higher, but remember that you only have to be sixteen.’

  ‘Child brides,’ said Miss Taylor dismissively.

  ‘My mother was eighteen when she married my father,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘And it was a very successful marriage, as I think you know. My own wife was twenty-two when we married.’

  Miss Taylor was silent.

  He felt more confident now. ‘So you see, it’s not so outrageo
us an idea to want to fix your daughter up with a husband in order to protect her from what might be a string of unhappy affairs with all sorts of unsuitable young men. In fact, the more I think about it, the more attractive it seems.’

  Miss Taylor now spoke. ‘But you can’t fix people up, as you put it. She’s a young woman now. She’s going to have her own ideas of what she wants, and I’m sorry to have to spell it out, but those ideas won’t necessarily be the same as yours.’ She frowned. ‘This is the twenty-first century, you know.’

  ‘That’, he said, ‘is a fact of which I am only too acutely aware. And I’m also aware of the fact that you cannot choose your daughter’s husband for her.’ He paused. ‘But what you can do is to let suitable people know that your daughter is about the place. That’s all. Then nature will take its course – or at least you hope it will, and some suitable young man – somebody from round about here – will step forward and win her over. That’s all.’

  Miss Taylor stared at him. She had wondered whether he was being entirely serious; now she understood that he was.

  ‘And how do you let people know?’ she asked.

  Mr Woodhouse smiled. ‘Do you read those copies of Country Life I get?’

  Miss Taylor knew immediately what he had in mind. ‘You mean we should get Isabella’s photograph into Country Life? On that page near the front where they have a picture each week of an attractive young woman, with details below of her parents and what she’s doing?’

  Mr Woodhouse nodded. ‘It’s a great tradition,’ he said. ‘They’ve been doing it for years, you know.’ He lowered his voice. ‘In fact, my mother had her photograph there. I’ve got the copy of the magazine in my study. I’m rather proud of it. To have a mother who had her photograph at the front of Country Life is quite something, don’t you think?’

  ‘I shall never completely understand the English,’ muttered Miss Taylor.

  ‘Don’t try,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘There are some things that pass all understanding, as they say.’

  4

  It was a matter, they said, of submitting a good photograph to the editor of Country Life and asking him to consider featuring one’s daughter in a future issue. Success was by no means guaranteed, even for the highly photogenic: there were many girls in many counties, all most eager to appear, or at least all having parents who were eager on their behalf. And parental support in this was crucial; self-nomination was unheard of, as the very act of putting oneself forward would be incontrovertible proof that one was not suitable.

  The photograph had to be reasonably interesting. Country Life girls did not simply sit for the camera against some featureless backdrop but were pictured striking a pose in surroundings that gave an indication of their normal social milieu or talents. The daughters of major gentry – those with stately homes – might be photographed leaning against a stone pillar, the clear inference being that this was just one of the many stone pillars owned by her father; those who had no stone pillars but who had, say, a small ornamental lake, would be photographed standing in front of this. Those who worked with horses – and this was large group – might have a hunter in the background, or at least a saddle. Dogs were a popular accoutrement, usually Labradors, who would be at the young woman’s side, ready to retrieve or flush birds, enthusiasts all, and given the same appraising scrutiny by the readers, in many cases, as the young woman herself.

  Not everybody, of course, lived in the country, although most of those who were urbanites had at least some country connection. Parents might be described as being of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea and East Woods Manor, Chipping Norton, or whatever it was that provided the country bolthole for those who lived in town. And of course in any such juxtaposition it was Chipping Norton rather than London that counted: anybody could live in London, but not everybody could live in Chipping Norton.

  The accompanying text also revealed the subject’s plans. Many young women were studying something at university – particularly at Durham, Edinburgh or Bristol. Many were planning to work in public relations or in a gallery; one or two – the lucky ones – had already opened their own interior-decoration business. Some were planning to get married in the near future, and the month of the wedding was given so that the readers might know whether they had been invited or passed over. If the wedding was to be the following month and no invitation had yet been received, then the conclusion was inescapable that one was not going. If, however, the marriage was to take place next September or October, and it was only May, then an invitation was still a possibility.

  Mr Woodhouse had never paid much attention to any of this, which he regarded as the sort of thing that appealed to women but not to men. The wording of any caption to Isabella’s photograph could be worked out later – his immediate task was to find a photographer. This sent him off to the Yellow Pages, but he had not even begun to page through these when he remembered that he knew of a photographer who was right on their doorstep, or whose brother was.

  George Knightley was the owner of one of the largest houses in the area, Donwell Abbey (twenty-four bedrooms). At the time at which Mr Woodhouse was thinking of publishing his daughter’s photograph, George was just twenty-five and had owned Donwell for four years. He had inherited not only a house, but looks too, his father having been described in a magazine article as one of the ten most handsome men in England. Knightley père had also been one of the most modest, as he never made any reference to this, or any other accolade that came his way. He had that endangered and most attractive quality: an old-fashioned Englishness, in appearance, garb, and manner, and a generosity of spirit that made him extremely popular in the neighbourhood. This ensured a sympathetic reception for his son when he took over the property. ‘Thank heavens,’ said people. ‘Think of what we might have had, with all these …’ Typically there then followed a listing of those who might have bought Donwell Abbey had it been put on the open market: hedge-fund people, dot-com people, Russian oligarchs, celebrities of various stripes – the list was a long one and generally concluded with a sigh of relief that the Knightleys remained exactly where they had been for centuries.

  His parents were divorced when he was barely seven. It was not an acrimonious parting: both parties had gradually grown away from each other and recognised that they were, quite simply, bored with the other’s company and that this boredom was beginning to turn to irritation. They understood that when another’s mannerisms begin to grate, it is probably too late to retrieve the situation, even if a relationship might be patched up with a lot of effort and forbearance. He went off to live in Vancouver; she stayed at Donwell, which had now been given to her as part of a generous divorce settlement. The boys stayed with her and, for reasons of geography, saw their father only intermittently. He lost touch with England and, to an extent, with his sons, although he had never intended to desert them. For her part, she developed a close friendship with a man she met at a bridge club, and ended up travelling with him to competitions all over the world. It was on one of these trips, a visit to an international bridge tournament in Kerala, that she was hit by a car – an old Hindustan Ambassador with minimal brakes – and died. Her last memories were of the sun above her – so brilliant, so unrelenting – and concerned faces looking down on her: a boy wearing a blue shirt, a man in a khaki uniform who was shouting at the others; and then the sun again, and darkness.

  Under the terms of her will, George inherited Donwell and the estate surrounding it, while his brother, John, was given such investments as his mother had. It was a roughly equitable division and it suited both of them. George had a sense of duty that his brother lacked; he also rather liked the challenge of restoring the Donwell farm to profitability. For John, his inheritance of easily realisable assets would enable him to indulge his taste for expensive cameras, forget the house that he had always found hopelessly uncomfortable and dull, and buy a flat in a fashionable part of London.

  The young George Knightley’s commitment to Donwell was no passing fancy. Ai
ded by his astute farm manager, he made sure that fields were used in such a way as to ensure maximum European Union grants. Old farm machinery was replaced with brand-new equipment, and diversification – the saviour of many a farmer who had found it impossible to make a living growing crops – was pursued with single-minded enthusiasm. This meant that several farm cottages that had been lying empty were made suitable for holiday lets; that beehives were introduced and a centrifuge bought for the extraction of honey from the comb; that a large flock of rare-breed sheep was established, as well as a farm shop selling home-cured bacon, jerseys and mittens made from the wool of the rare-breed sheep; in short, that every way of making a farm pay was examined, tried, and, if successful, implemented.

  The proximity of Donwell Abbey to Hartfield meant that the Woodhouses and Knightleys saw a fair amount of each other. George Knightley had always been aware of the Woodhouse girls, of course, but they were, in his eyes, no more than two rather attractive teenage girls who had always been about the place and with whom he occasionally chatted. Isabella, of course, had always appreciated his looks, but the age gap between them made any thought of romance impossible. When she was sixteen, and beginning to take a strong interest in boys, he was twenty-four, and therefore impossibly old by teenage standards.

  ‘Life after twenty?’ Isabella said to a friend. ‘I don’t think so!’

  ‘Well, you’re hardly dead when you’re twenty-something,’ said the friend. ‘Maybe a bit past it, but not actually finished.’

  ‘That comes later.’

  ‘Yes, forty.’

  They had laughed, but they actually meant it.