The Watsons and Emma Watson

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Emma Watson, Jane Austen's Unfinished Novel Completed by Joan Aiken WHAT A VERY FORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCE IT WAS THAT ROBERT and Jane chose this day to visit their friends at Alford,' said Emma Watson, walking into the wash-house with a large bundle of table-linen in her arms. 'Indeed yes!' agreed her sister Elizabeth, briskly giving a stir to various tubs of laundry soaking in solutions of household soda and unslaked lime. 'Those cloths you have there, Emma, can go straight into the copper, unless any of them is badly stained.' 'Only this handkerchief of my father's, which has ink on it.' 'Spread it out in a pan of oxalic acid. Or spirits of sorrel. You will find the bottles next door, on the shelf.' The wash-house at Stanton Parsonage was a large, draughty room with a York stone floor, a copper, and a range of wooden tubs. The bleaching-room, next to it, was used for ironing, mangling, and drying. These two rooms were, of course, on the ground floor, with doors and windows giving on to the stable-yard; all the windows were wide open at the moment to let out the steam. Both sisters wore pattens, and had tied voluminous linen aprons over their cambric gowns. 'I do think that Margaret, at least, might have stayed behind and helped us, since she knew poor old Nanny was laid up with her bad foot,' observed Emma dispassionately, spreading out the stained kerchief in a pan of bleaching solution. 'Hah! Margaret would be of no more use than a child of three. Less! She would grumble and stand about and argue and complain that the soda spoilt her white hands. No; we go on very well as we are, Emma! I am infinitely obliged to you for your good nature in sharing the work with me, and only thankful that it is such a capital drying-day; if we can get the bed-linen out into the orchard by nine o'clock, everything may well be put away before our guests return for dinner. For once it is an advantage that they like to keep late, fashionable hours.' 'I am only sorry that you could not go with them, Elizabeth; you never seem to get a day's holiday.' 'Oh, it pleases me much better to get this great wash done,' said Elizabeth simply. 'Besides I would not, no, I would not at all have wished to go along with Robert and Jane today – not for the universe, indeed! The visit would only arouse the most painful recollections; in fact-' Her voice was choked, she stood silently over the boiling copper, biting her lips in an effort to control a rising sob, as she stirred the white and steamy brew with a wooden batten. Emma threw a quick, unhappy glance at her elder sister. Elizabeth Watson was now twenty-nine, long past all hope of matrimonial prospects. The sisters had been parted for fourteen years, and Emma's last recollections of Elizabeth were from when the latter was fifteen, a tall, lively, handsome girl, with a fresh complexion and a wonderful head of thick, pale-gold hair, like that of a Nordic princess; now her face was thin, careworn, and at the moment flushed and greasy with steam; the hair, lank and flat, long since concealed under an old-maid's cap. It is so unfair, thought Emma helplessly; Eliza was far prettier than either Margaret or Penelope; why should she have been obliged to waste her youth and good looks in this kind of task while they may go away visiting and enjoying themselves? In a wish to distract her sister's sad thoughts, she asked a question: 'Who is this friend of our brother's that they are to visit at Alford?' The question was not a lucky one. Elizabeth's mouth quivered again, but she regained hold of herself and replied: 'His name is Purvis – I think you have heard me speak of Purvis?' 'Yes, now I remember, you mentioned him the other evening when you were driving me to the Assembly in Dorking.' But, recalling the context, Emma's heart sank, for she coulAiken, Joan is the author of 'The Watsons and Emma Watson', published 2008 under ISBN 9781402212291 and ISBN 1402212291.