On a bright June day Mr. Woodhouse is safely driven over in the carriage, with one window down, to join in the al fresco party, by sitting in one of the most comfortable rooms in the Abbey where a fire has burnt all the morning, with Mrs. Weston to bear him company.
The few words representing Donwell Abbey have the usual effect of Jane Austen’s spare but graphic, and perfectly unaffected, unlaboured descriptions. The house and grounds, under the brooding heat of the midsummer day, lie before us. The Abbey is an ample and irregular building, low-lying, with all the old neglect of “prospect,” but having abundance of “timber” in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance has rooted up. There are extensive gardens, stretching down to meadows washed by a stream. We can understand Emma Woodhouse’s “honest pride and complacency” in her connection with the present and future proprietor of Donwell Abbey.
There is an unaccountable delay in the arrival of Frank Churchill, who was to have come on horseback, and some fears as to his horse are entertained.
In the meantime Mrs. Elton picks strawberries and talks for everybody—not excepting Miss Bates.
At last, when the various groups are resting on the seats in the shade, Emma cannot help overhearing Mrs. Elton urging on Jane Fairfax the acceptance of a situation as governess, offered to her through the Sucklings of Maple Grove.
Miss Fairfax is replying that she cannot fix on any arrangement till the return of the Campbells from Ireland.
Mrs. Elton is declining to be put off, and insisting on returning an answer in the affirmative by the next post.
Emma wonders how Jane can bear it, and even Jane looks vexed, speaks pointedly, and proposes to walk farther.
It is hot, and insensibly the company gather under the “delicious” shelter of a short avenue of limes, stretching beyond the gardens, and leading to nothing, unless to a view over a low stone wall, with high pillars, giving the appearance of an approach to the house where none had ever existed. The author objects to the sham, but expatiates—for her—on the view:—the distant bank, well clothed with wood—the Abbey Mill Farm, and its meadows—the river, making a curve around them. Jane Austen adds the short, significant sentence:—“It was a sweet view—sweet to the eye and mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright without being oppressive.”
In this walk, Emma is amused to find Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith leading the way. It is an odd tête-à-tête, but Emma is glad to see it, and to meet Mr. Knightley’s smile when she joins the couple, and finds him giving Harriet information on modes of agriculture. The smile seems to say—“These are my own concerns. I have a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of introducing Robert Martin.”