Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins danced together for the first time as an engaged couple, that night, at the party at Mrs. Brown's.
The Carriage
The rain blew away; the sun shone; and as the month of March opened to bring daffodils and crocuses to all the gardens of Bath, the happiest couple, because the latest engaged, strolled through Laura Place to Pulteney Street, the lady leaning upon the gentleman's arm. Between the Abbey Churchyard and Milsom Street they planned their household, and on the way to the Pump Room to drink the waters and listen to the music, they talked of the society of the village of Highbury to which Miss Hawkins was shortly to be transplanted. Every thing, in fact, was arranged with the greatest speed and felicity, except one. Mr. Elton had a parish, a house, good furniture, and an income that, with the addition of Miss Hawkins' ten thousand pounds, could never be contemptible; but he did not possess his own carriage.
"I fear, my dear Augusta, that everybody does their gcarriage-building in preparation for the Spring. I have written to Malone's, and gone to see Sloane and Wilkens, but their hands are full. I do not know what we can do. I wish I had set up a carriage before, indeed; but for a single man, hired hacks sufficed. Yet I cannot bring my bride to Highbury without a carriage."
"To be sure not. But is there no carriage maker - can we not procure the pitifulest old wagon in the world? - I do not ask for a very handsome carriage. I do not have pretensions to aspire to a barouche-landau, for of course I know that we will not have the income of my brother Mr. Suckling. For them, two carriages are quite a necessary thing."
"No, a barouche-landau, I think, would certainly be out of place in a little country town. Our parishioners would think we were putting on airs."
"Only think! well! how provoking. But I suppose I shall have to accustom myself to having an audience observing everything that we do, and being the cynosure of all eyes. Our choice of carriage will probably be a subject that will make a great stir in Highbury."
"Exactly so, my dear Augusta. We cannot be too careful. Now, curricles are smart; but they do not suit a married couple as well as a landau, I think, or a landaulet would do quite as well."
"Oh, I would not have a curricle for the world. They may do very well for fast young gentlemen, and puppies - Mr. Bird has a curricle I believe - but not for Mr. and Mrs. Elton of Highbury. I am sure you are right, and we should not try to make too smart an appearance; our new neighbours are apt to feel inferior, and I would not have that for a fortune. They are country people, and not used to the elegancies of town, I believe you have told me."
"That is very much the case, my dear. Why, the Woodhouses, and the Bates, and even elegant ladies such as Mrs. Weston and Mrs. Cole, never stir from Highbury. It is different with the gentlemen. Knightley, and Weston, and Cole, sometimes have business that takes them to Town. But they do not mix with the fashionable world. Ah! they will stare to find a lady of fashion, like you, among them, my dear Augusta."
"I shall have to teach them how to do everything, I suppose. I have heard that in these little country places, people dine at four o'clock, and there are no fine parties at all. I am glad you have such a fine cook, and I shall soon have her in the way of making rout-cakes such as we had at the Browns."
"Ah! Augusta, you will civilize Highbury. But the carriage, my dear - the carriage. I confess it seems a desperate business. I begin to fear that we may not be able to set up our carriage, and be married, until May, at this rate; and that will be exceedingly inconvenient for my parish, and also for me, as I would wish to be married as soon as can be. You understand, Augusta, and forgive me for being so ardent?"
"Certainly I understand, my dear Mr. E, and your being ardent can only flatter me, you know. When you are my lord and master, I assure you, I shall make a proper return. And I have no fear but that you shall be able to purchase a carriage before many days have passed. Why, any thing can be bought with money; and I am sure, that if we look only a little farther, we shall meet with success. I shall write to Mr. Suckling for advice. Is there not a carriage maker a little out of town, on the London road? Have you applied to him?"
With such encouragement from his lady-to-be, Mr. Elton was not slow in visiting all the carriage-makers in the neighbourhood, and vigorously stating his wishes, until he did meet with success; and for only fifty pounds more than he had hoped to give, he secured his purchase, a shining new landau with a purple silk lining.
So Augusta and Philip were joined in marriage, so early as the first of March. In despite of much conjecture on the point, their wedding was celebrated many weeks before Mr. Bird and Miss Milman were able to agree upon settlements in their own match. A flurry of parties and dinners were given for the Eltons in Bath, in honour of their nuptials, and at every one of these their placid satisfaction was so much in evidence, as to form a contrast with the quarrels between Mr. Bird and his friends, and Miss Milman and hers, each of whom felt the other party was being cheaply dealt with. The truth was, that there was not enough money to go around; if one fortune is all that a couple needs between them, Mr. Bird and Miss Milman were unfortunate in not having any.
Such was not the lot of the happy Eltons, however, and they duly left Bath in their shining new carriage, inaugurating it with a short visit to Maple Grove, in order that Mr. Elton might meet the Sucklings. And so, their courtship having proceeded with incredible swiftness, and their wedding bells rung with celerity, March was not half over, before the newly wedded pair swept into Highbury, and Augusta was settled in the vicarage, with every possible comfort and source of happiness at hand.
Augusta was pleased, on the whole, with everything she saw; the house was good, if small, and new-furnished in the best of modern taste. The servants, she instantly had under command; and everything was soon running with pattern smoothness, as a vicarage ought to do. Mrs. Elton had nothing to wish for, but to take a place in the village society that would be worthy of her position, her income, her husband, and her elegance. Accordingly, on her first Sunday in Highbury, she put on her bridal raiment to make a most elegant and proper appearance in Church, where the wondering townspeople would catch their first glimpse of the vicar's wife, a bride in a pew.
In Defense of Mrs Elton
PART ONE
Augusta Hawkins was neither handsome, clever, nor rich, and had lived five-and-twenty years in the world with a good deal to T vex and distress her. Her father and mother had died when she was very young, and the fortune divided between Augusta and her older sister Selina, was so moderate, after her father's dry-goods establishment in Bristol was sold, that it was plain the young women could reasonably look forward to no brilliant or distinguished destiny. Their home with an uncle, an attorney's clerk, was not the home of comfort and plenty: the interest on the girls' portions formed an important part of the household income, and the uncle was a mean, narrow-minded, illiterate man, whose home in the very heart of Bristol was not one calculated to give a young woman any advantage in society.
With the luck that defies prediction in matrimonial affairs, Selina Hawkins, with only so many thousands of pounds as would always be called ten, attracted, in her first season at Bath, the attentions of a young man both rich and liberal, and was rapidly and triumphantly married, while Augusta's lot in life remained to be fixed. It was to be hoped that Selina's triumph would be to her sister's advantage, in being the means of introducing her to other rich young men, but this did not occur: Maple Grove, Mr. Suckling's seat, was certainly all that was luxurious and comfortable, far superior to anything Augusta had ever seen in her straitened Bristol life; but it was in a location very retired, in a small community (as was reflected in the size of the school), so that among all the families the Sucklings visited, there was no eligible young man worthy of the name.
Augusta had, to be sure, a sufficiency to live upon; and she was a welcome guest at Maple Grove, as often as she cared to be there; which, as the place was to her a paradise of peace and plenty, in comparison with her Bristol home, was very
often indeed. Maple Grove formed her tastes probably more than it should; and Selina, anxious for her sister, began to give her many hints that it would be well for her to be mistress of such an establishment of her own. As Augusta fully agreed with this, there was nothing for her to do but to visit Bath as often as might be. Her uncle, to be sure, never went into society, and would not make a figure in any circle in Bath that could do his niece any good. Selina could not often be spared from her duties at Maple Grove; and so Augusta was forced into a kind of half-and-half Bath life, making shift with friends married and single, who took young lady guests, and provided the necessary chaperonage to the Rooms and the various private dances and card parties that were so important to a young woman whose object was matrimony.
Eight long seasons did Augusta spend in Bath, without attracting any wished-for Mr. Suckling; and she was in truth growing desperate, if a young lady may ever be said to be desperate, while Selina had given up her chances altogether.
"That girl," she declared, "will never find a husband; she is too nice. I will tell you what, Augusta, you will end as an old maid, indeed you will. You are always very welcome to make your home at Maple Grove, to be sure - very welcome but I should think you would be too proud, and would try a little harder to do something for yourself."
Three months after Selina uttered these words, Augusta had met a young man who was as anxious to marry her as she could wish to be married; and one month from that date, she was Mrs. Philip Elton, being carried in the ecstasy of her bridal achievement, from her meagre Bath rooms to a new home, a respectable and prosperous vicarage in the Surrey village of Highbury.
PART TWO
Mr. Elton was a match, all her friends agreed, beyond any thing that Augusta Hawkins deserved. A young man so handsome, of ` such unexceptionable character, so universally popular, a clergyman with a good income and a comfortable home - he certainly might have claimed a wife of more than ten thousand pounds; he might have aspired to twenty. In fact, Mr. Elton had aspired to thirty thousand pounds, and had met with such disagreeable mortification in his very unreasonable application, that he had removed himself in no happy temper to Bath, determined not to return to Highbury until he could bring with him a bride that would astonish the place with her style and éclat. In such a mood, he was ready to be caught; and in Miss Hawkins, he found a woman handsome enough, if not an acknowledged beauty, and of fortune useful if not vast. It was, in short, her vivacity, her liveliness of mind and manner, and her extreme willingness to have him, that fixed the matter. Mr. Elton was not a man of more than common manners, and had not discernment enough to know that his bride had not received an education, or mixed in exclusive enough society, for true elegance. She was good-natured, and very well disposed to him; and he found her chat amusing and entertaining. He knew that when he returned to Highbury, he might no longer spend the long winter evenings at Hartfield, as he had been wont to do before the late debacle with the proud, contemptuous heiress, Miss Woodhouse. To have a pleasing, talking young woman like Miss Hawkins as mistress of his home, agreeable and fond of social life as she was, would animate his lonely fireside, and make him happy.
Mr. Elton did not scruple to paint a very agreeable picture of Highbury for his future wife. He feared she would find the village too retired; the society was not extensive. Certainly the vicarage was small, it was nothing at all compared to what she was used to at Maple Grove. The Woodhouses were unfortunately the first family in the neighbourhood, and Mr. Elton anticipated all the social awkwardness that this implied, upon his return. When once Miss Hawkins' affections and promises were engaged, he described to her the families she would soon be intimate with, and on the night following their wedding, that time of all when no secrets need be kept back, he confided to her the whole story of Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith. The new Mrs. Elton heard it with indignation. Fancy a young woman, with every advantage like that, so rich and so proud, the Queen of her society, daring to look down on her own Mr. E, and treating him as if he were not even a gentleman! And wanting to marry him to her friend - a girl who was not even the product of a legitimate union, the daughter of nobody knew who! Disgraceful. Augusta herself had struggled all her life, had endured more humiliations and rejections in the fine society of Bath than she would care to have admitted. She could feel little sympathy for those who effortlessly reigned over others, and who could even take up a low, baseborn girl on a whim, without fear of social disapproval. Imagine if she, Augusta, tried doing such a thing! She was prepared to hate both Miss Woodhouse - whom her husband had apparently been quite in love with - and Miss Smith, who was absolutely in love with him.
Augusta's only security in her new Highbury life, where she was altogether a stranger, was in the heart and hand of Mr. Elton. It was an unlucky fate that put her down in the very village where lived the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman who had wanted to marry him, without a hope of their removal from the place. But she was the bride, she was Mrs. Elton; she had achieved the height of her aims and ambitions, and if she was not to be the mistress of an estate like Maple Grove, she might yet be an important, an influential, a useful figure, the great lady of the small village, with only this Miss Woodhouse as a rival. It behooved her, therefore, to make of Miss Woodhouse an ally, for it would be intolerable to be dictated to, for a whole lifetime perhaps, by such a person. As things started out, so they would go on. Together, Mrs. Elton and Miss Woodhouse might run Highbury affairs comfortably between them, and have every thing their own way. They would do so much good! Mrs. Elton prepared for the first meeting with this formidable young lady, with the greatest care and anxiety. It was not too much to say that everything depended upon it.
PART THREE
The introduction was alarming. Hartfield was a very fine and beautiful old house, of such antiquity and comfort as Mrs. Elton had never g seen before in her life; and she could only maintain her composure, and conceal how overwhelmed and unimportant she really felt, by making comparisons with Maple Grove. She knew she was mentioning it too often - she could not help talking too much when she was nervous - and she felt the impression being made upon Miss Woodhouse was an unfortunate one. When she mentioned the staircase at Maple Grove, she distinctly saw a contemptuous expression pass over Miss Woodhouse's proud features. Rattled, she tried to compensate, to overcome the young lady's evident disdain, by throwing a little extra warmth into her manner, and assuming a higher degree of friendship and amity for Miss Woodhouse than she really felt, or than was possible to feel on such short acquaintance. She and Miss Woodhouse must be friends; their situations relative to each other demanded it; and not knowing how to engage so very formidable and proud a young lady, possessed of manners of such icy perfection, Mrs. Elton unwisely chose the unfortunate method of an over-assumption of intimacy. In her anxiety she heard herself suggesting that she and Miss Woodhouse unite to form a musical society - highly desirable and important to Mrs. Elton, to be sure - but it was with chagrin that she saw Miss Woodhouse coldly passing over the suggestion. She tried to present as prepossessing a portrait of herself as she could, impressing upon Miss Woodhouse the position that she, as Miss Hawkins, had held in society; but Miss Woodhouse was not, would not be, impressed. Not by Maple Grove, not by several mentions of her brother-in-law Mr. Suckling's fine carriages, not by her kind offer to introduce her to friends in Bath - what more could she possibly say to appease and engage this young lady?
Augusta knew, even as she was speaking, that everything she was saying was wrong, but she thought that Miss Woodhouse might show some consideration, might feel some sympathy for the uncertainty she felt as a stranger, as a bride. But no sympathy, no warmth was forthcoming. A powerful resentment began to come over Augusta. This Miss Woodhouse was intolerable! Dreadful woman! So self-satisfied, so certain of everything she said! Augusta could hardly keep from putting her down, correcting her when she so arrogantly looked down her nose and declared, "Many counties are called the garden of England, I believe." She argued
about everything. Mrs. Elton had not had the advantage of the best music masters, in Bristol, and was thankful to be able to give up the painful obligation to have to play and sing before everybody, at evening parties at Bath as well as before every group of newcomers to Maple Grove. But from Miss Woodhouse's sneers, you would think that giving up music as a married woman, was something reprehensible.
It was plain by the end of a quarter of an hour, that she and Miss Woodhouse were not to be bosom friends. Hopelessly, Augusta tried to impress on Miss Woodhouse that she was to be respected as a married woman, at least; that she had held an important position in society before her marriage; that her sister was well married - but each implied boast, or direct brag, hit the wrong spot, and Miss Woodhouse only looked more and more scornful, if that was possible. Even a compliment spoken about that nice Mrs. Weston, who had been Miss Woodhouse's governess but now had risen to be quite an enviable and important figure in Highbury society, did not serve. Showing interest and approval of the man who might almost be considered the King of Highbury, Mr. Knightley, an intimate friend of the Woodhouses, did not answer either. Mrs. Elton was hurt, disappointed, at her wits' end. She would have to seek for friends elsewhere, it was very plain. Where could she look? That elegant young Miss Fairfax was more come-at-able, certainly less unpleasing, than this Miss Woodhouse, and might be properly grateful for friendly overtures. Perhaps she would find a friend, an ally, there.
PART FOUR
Mrs Elton in Amercia Page 3
