One shilling would buy a chicken. What was done was done.
“It’ll grow,” said Emma.
I whispered, crestfallen, “Now I need a wig.”
“We’re going to buy you a beautiful bonnet,” said Isabella.
“Or two,” said Emma.
When did it change, from cribbage to courtship? For all the years I’d been visiting Hartfield, I’d declined Mr. Woodhouse’s offers of sherry or brandy. But with Mother gone, I accepted my first glass. He and I developed a routine: dinner, then music, if Emma was home to play and sing, then to the card table, fireside. If Mr. Woodhouse fell asleep over a slow game of honeymoon whist, I did not mind. Ever obliging, and with the horses ready, Jim drove me home.
One night, when Emma and Mr. Knightley were away on a trip to Bath, the very thing happened that made Mr. Woodhouse greatly agitated: It began to snow. He stated matter-of-factly that I could not return home.
I said, “It’s a flurry. It won’t amount to anything. And it’s a short distance.”
“You cannot go home!” He waved his arm toward the vast staircase beyond—“We have so many rooms”—which sidetracked him to one of his favourite wistful topics: why Isabella and her whole family couldn’t move back from London and live with him.
The next words I uttered surprised myself. “I know you are nervous when the daughters are away. Perhaps… it’s loneliness?”
He blinked hard, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he returned to the task of setting up the chess pieces for the match I’d agreed to.
Didn’t asking about a friend’s loneliness deserve an answer? I found myself moving my ivory pieces aggressively, fueled by an unfamiliar ill temper. When I declared “Checkmate,” it was without apology, without my usual offer to box the pieces. I announced I’d be retiring. Would there be a fire in the room?
“I’ll summon Jim,” he said.
We breakfasted at one end of the vast dining room table. Small talk was exchanged. The snow had stopped. How had I slept? he asked.
In an indifferent tone, I said, “Fine.”
He informed me that I’d be staying until the snow melted.
Did he not know I needed changes of clothes and stockings and the emollients I used on my face? I explained that I hadn’t anticipated an overnight visit. My birds were alone. Mr. Woodhouse declared, dismissing the very snow that vexed him, “Your birds are welcome here. Jim will drive you home. You’ll collect what you need, and return.”
“For what?” I asked.
“To keep me company until Emma and George return.”
As his companion and helpmeet? As a governess to an adult man? Were his daughters’ instincts faulty, their ministrations a waste of time? Mere companionship was not my fondest hope… but still the luxuries of this warm house, its cream soups, the fish and game, the puddings, the pennies saved.
I said, “If you think it’s proper…”
He looked puzzled, and I sensed why. His expression was asking,Miss Bates? How could her presence provoke anything but propriety?
At home, I packed for all eventualities, practically my whole wardrobe, the new and the old, my knitting and my needlepoint, my diary, my parrots. How many books would look too ambitious? I packed just two.
Six days and nights passed before Emma and Mr. Knightley returned. I had had many opportunities—at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; over cordials and backgammon; on walks around the shrubberies—to take his arm and confess that I, too, was lonely, but I did not.
“Well?” Emma asked me in the manner of a bosom friend.
I said, “I keep busy during the day. We take walks. I write letters and read. I don’t tire of the games at night because we vary them. And if I may be immodest, I think your father is less frantic over your absence when he has someone to fret with.”
“You know it’s a huge favour to Mr. Knightley and me?” Emma asked.
I did. But something was bothering me. I’d been to church and had returned to Hartfield in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage. Was I so plain, so unlikely a candidate for scandal, that no one in the village was gossiping about us?
My hair had grown an inch, and a vinegar rinse made it shiny.A lock on either side of my face had been coaxed into a curlicue. I announced the obvious to Mr. Woodhouse one warm night after taking off my lace cap. “Until recently, I had very long hair—too long, a burden. It gave me headaches. It was like having an extra head on my pillow.”
Finally, he looked up.
