While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a
full flow of happy regrets and tearful 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 after Mr. Perry yet; and
he never forgets you."
"Oh, 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 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 is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation 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 to--"
"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?"
"Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. 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 had never known them 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 so bad!"
"No, indeed, _we_ are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is so
very superior to most others. You must not confound us with London in
general, my dear sir. The neighborhood 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 favorable as to air."
"Ah, my dear, it is 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 had 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
toward her husband.
"Middling, 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. But 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 favorite 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."