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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 surprized 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 Wingfield says it is entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may be depended on, 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 chuse between forty miles and an hundred. – Better not move at all, better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into a 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 tomorrow 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 Perry, 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.
There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs John Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a delightful visit; – perfect, in being much too short.
In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their mornings; but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too, there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr Weston would take no denial; they must all dine at Randalls one day; – even Mr Woodhouse was persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of the party.
How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he could, but as his son and daughter’s carriage and horses were actually at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for Harriet also.
Harriet, Mr Elton, and Mr Knightley, their own especial set, were the only persons invited to meet them; – the hours were to be early, as well as the numbers few; Mr Woodhouse’s habits and inclination being consulted in every thing.
The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that Mr Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs Goddard was full of care and affection, Mr Perry was talked of, and Harriet herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss without many tears.
Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs Goddard’s unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr Elton’s would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not advanced many yards from Mrs Goddard’s door, when she was met by Mr Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly together in conversation about the invalid – of whom he, on the rumour of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might carry some report of her to Hartfield – they were overtaken by Mr John Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend’s complaint; – ‘a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore throats, and had often alarmed her with them.’ Mr Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as he exclaimed,
‘A sore throat! – I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. Why does not Perry see her?’
Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillized this excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs Goddard’s experience and care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist than not, she added soon afterwards – as if quite another subject,
‘It is so cold, so very cold – and looks and feels so very much like snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I should really try not to go out today – and dissuade my father from venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great a disappointment to Mr and Mrs Weston. But, upon my word, Mr Elton, in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and what fatigues tomorrow will bring, I think it would be no more than common prudence to stay at home and take care