CHAPTER II

Emma had seen the Edwards only one morning at Stanton; they were therefore all but strangers to her; and though her spirits were by no means insensible to the expected joys of the evening, she felt a little uncomfortable in the thought of all that was to precede them. Her conversation with Elizabeth, too, giving her some very unpleasant feelings with respect to her own family, had made her more open to disagreeable impressions from any other cause, and increased her sense of the awkwardness of rushing into intimacy on so slight an acquaintance.

There was nothing in the manner of Mrs and Miss Edwards to give immediate change to these ideas. The mother, though a very friendly woman, had a reserved air, and a great deal of formal civility; and the daughter, a genteel-looking girl of twenty-two, with her hair in papers, seemed very naturally to have caught something of the style of her mother who had brought her up. Emma was soon left to know what they could be, by Elizabeth’s being obliged to hurry away; and some very, very languid remarks on the probable brilliancy of the ball were all that broke at intervals a silence of half an hour before they were joined by the master of the house. Mr Edwards had a much easier and more communicative air than the ladies of the family; he was fresh from the street, and he came ready to tell whatever might interest. After a cordial reception of Emma, he turned to his daughter with:

“Well, Mary, I bring you good news: the Osbornes will certainly be at the ball to-night. Horses for two carriages are ordered from the White Hart to be at Osborne Castle by nine.”

“I am glad of it,” observed Mrs Edwards, “because their coming gives a credit to our assembly. The Osbornes being known to have been at the first ball, will dispose a great many people to attend the second. It is more than they deserve; for, in fact, they add nothing to the pleasure of the evening, they come so late and go so early; but great people have always their charm.”

Mr Edwards proceeded to relate many other little articles of news which his morning’s lounge had supplied him with, and they chatted with greater briskness, till Mrs Edwards’ moment for dressing arrived, and the young ladies were carefully recommended to lose no time. Emma was shown to a very comfortable apartment, and as soon as Mrs Edwards’ civilities could leave her to herself, the happy occupation, the first bliss of a ball, began. The girls, dressing in some measure together, grew unavoidably better acquainted. Emma found in Miss Edwards the show of good sense, a modest unpretending mind, and a great wish of obliging; and when they returned to the parlour where Mrs Edwards was sitting, respectably attired in one of the two satin gowns which went through the winter, and a new cap from the milliner’s, they entered it with much easier feelings and more natural smiles than they had taken away. Their dress was now to be examined: Mrs Edwards acknowledged herself too old-fashioned to approve of every modern extravagance, however sanctioned; and though complacently viewing her daughter’s good looks, would give but a qualified admiration; and Mr Edwards, not less satisfied with Mary, paid some compliments of good-humoured gallantry to Emma at her expense. The discussion led to more intimate remarks, and Miss Edwards gently asked Emma if she was not often reckoned very like her youngest brother. Emma thought she could perceive a faint blush accompany the question, and there seemed something still more suspicious in the manner in which Mr Edwards took up the subject.

“You are paying Miss Emma no great compliment, I think, Mary,” said he, hastily. “Mr Sam Watson is a very good sort of young man, and I dare say a very clever surgeon; but his complexion has been rather too much exposed to all weathers to make a likeness to him very flattering.”

Mary apologised, in some confusion.

“She had not thought a strong likeness at all incompatible with very different degrees of beauty. There might be resemblance in countenance, and the complexion and even the features be very unlike.”

“I know nothing of my brother’s beauty,” said Emma, “for I have not seen him since he was seven years old; but my father reckons us alike.”

“Mr Watson!” cried Mr Edwards; “well, you astonish me. There is not the least likeness in the world; your brother’s eyes are grey, yours are brown; he has a long face, and a wide mouth. My dear, do _you_ perceive the least resemblance?”

“Not the least: Miss Emma Watson puts me very much in mind of her eldest sister, and sometimes I see a look of Miss Penelope, and once or twice there has been a glance of Mr Robert, but I cannot perceive any likeness to Mr Samuel.”

“I see the likeness between her and Miss Watson,” replied Mr Edwards, “very strongly, but I am not sensible of the others. I do not much think she is like any of the family _but_ Miss Watson; but I am very sure there is no resemblance between her and Sam.”

This matter was settled, and they went to dinner.

“Your father, Miss Emma, is one of my oldest friends,” said Mr Edwards, as he helped her to wine, when they were drawn round the fire to enjoy their dessert. “We must drink to his better health. It is a great concern to me, I assure you, that he should be such an invalid. I know nobody who likes a game of cards, in a social way, better than he does, and very few people that play a fairer rubber. It is a thousand pities that he should be so deprived of the pleasure. For now we have a quiet little Whist Club that meets three times a week at the White Hart; and if he could but have his health, how much he would enjoy it!”

“I dare say he would, sir; and I wish with all my heart he were equal to it.”

“Your club would be better fitted for an invalid,” said Mrs Edwards, “if you did not keep it up so late.” This was an old grievance.

“So late, my dear! What are you talking of?” cried the husband, with sturdy pleasantry. “We are always at home before midnight. They would laugh at Osborne Castle to hear you call _that_ late; they are but just rising from dinner at midnight.”

“That is nothing to the purpose,” retorted the lady, calmly. “The Osbornes are to be no rule for us. You had better meet every night, and break up two hours sooner.”

So far the subject was very often carried; but Mr and Mrs Edwards were so wise as never to pass that point; and Mr Edwards now turned to something else. He had lived long enough in the idleness of a town to become a little of a gossip, and having some anxiety to know more of the circumstances of his young guest than had yet reached him, he began with:

“I think, Miss Emma, I remember your aunt very well, about thirty years ago; I am pretty sure I danced with her in the old rooms at Bath the year before I married. She was a very fine woman then, but like other people, I suppose, she is grown somewhat older since that time. I hope she is likely to be happy in her second choice.”

“I hope so; I believe so, sir,” said Emma, in some agitation.

“Mr Turner had not been dead a great while, I think?”

“About two years, sir.”

“I forget what her name is now.”

“O’Brien.”

“Irish! Ah! I remember; and she is gone to settle in Ireland. I do not wonder that you should not wish to go with her into _that_ country, Miss Emma; but it must be a great deprivation to her, poor lady! after bringing you up like a child of her own.”

“I was not so ungrateful, sir,” said Emma, warmly, “as to wish to be anywhere but with her. It did not suit Captain O’Brien that I should be of the party.”

“Captain!” repeated Mrs Edwards. “The gentleman is in the army then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Aye, there is nothing like your officers for captivating the ladies, young or old. There is no resisting a cockade, my dear.”

“I hope there is,” said Mrs Edwards gravely, with a quick glance at her daughter; and Emma had just recovered from her own perturbation in time to see a blush on Miss Edwards’ cheek, and in remembering what Elizabeth had said of Captain Hunter, to wonder and waver between his influence and her brother’s.

“Elderly ladies should be careful how they make a second choice,” observed Mr Edwards.

“Carefulness and discretion should not be confined to elderly ladies, or to a second choice,” added his wife. “They are quite as necessary to young ladies in their first.”

“Rather more so, my dear,” replied he; “because young ladies are likely to feel the effects of it longer. When an old lady plays the fool, it is not in the course of nature that she should suffer from it many years.”

Emma drew her hand across her eyes, and Mrs Edwards, on perceiving it, changed the subject to one of less anxiety to all.

With nothing to do but to expect the hour of setting off, the afternoon was long to the two young ladies; and though Miss Edwards was rather discomposed at the very early hour which her mother always fixed for going, that early hour itself was watched for with some eagerness. The entrance of the tea-things at seven o’clock was some relief; and luckily Mr and Mrs Edwards always drank a dish extraordinary and ate an additional muffin when they were going to sit up late, which lengthened the ceremony almost to the wished-for moment.

At a little before eight o’clock the Tomlinsons’ carriage was heard to go by, which was the constant signal for Mrs Edwards to order hers to the door; and in a very few minutes the party were transported from the quiet and warmth of a snug parlour to the bustle, noise, and draughts of air of a broad entrance passage of an inn. Mrs Edwards, carefully guarding her own dress, while she attended with yet greater solicitude to the proper security of her young charges’ shoulders and throats, led the way up the wide staircase, while no sound of a ball but the first scrape of one violin blessed the ears of her followers; and Miss Edwards, on hazarding the anxious enquiry of whether there were many people come yet, was told by the waiter, as she knew she should, that “Mr Tomlinson’s family were in the room.”

In passing along a short gallery to the assembly room, brilliant in lights before them, they were accosted by a young man in a morning-dress and boots, who was standing in the doorway of a bed-chamber, apparently on purpose to see them go by.

“Ah! Mrs Edwards, how do you do? How do you do, Miss Edwards?” he cried, with an easy air. “You are determined to be in good time, I see, as usual. The candles are but this moment lit.”

“I like to get a good seat by the fire, you know, Mr Musgrave,” replied Mrs Edwards.

“I am this moment going to dress,” said he. “I am waiting for my stupid fellow. We shall have a famous ball. The Osbornes are certainly coming; you may depend upon _that_, for I was with Lord Osborne this morning--”

The party passed on. Mrs Edwards’ satin gown swept along the clean floor of the ball-room to the fireplace at the upper end, where one party only were formally seated, while three or four officers were lounging together, passing in and out from the adjoining card-room. A very stiff meeting between these near neighbours ensued, and as soon as they were all duly placed again, Emma, in a low whisper, which became the solemn scene, said to Miss Edwards:

“The gentleman we passed in the passage was Mr Musgrave, then? he is reckoned remarkably agreeable, I understand.”

Miss Edwards answered hesitatingly, “Yes; he is very much liked by many people; but _we_ are not very intimate.”

“He is rich, is not he?”

“He has about eight or nine hundred a-year, I believe. He came into possession of it when he was very young, and my father and mother think it has given him rather an unsettled turn. He is no favourite with them.”