Emma: A Modern Retelling by Smith Alexander McCall

Author:Smith, Alexander McCall [Smith, Alexander McCall]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Classics, Adult
ISBN: 9780345809087
Google: dSuOAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00KAFVNP6
Goodreads: 22926812
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2014-11-06T08:00:00+00:00

13

It was about this time that Jane Fairfax came to stay with her aunt, the unfortunate Miss Bates, and her grandmother, the even more unfortunate Mrs Bates. The two Bateses lived in the centre of the village, in circumstances that were cramped both physically and financially. It was widely believed that both of them had suffered a serious financial loss at more or less the same time – a loss that obliged them to exchange a comfortable existence for an uncertain life of near-indigence. The financial loss was said to have come about when they had both been persuaded by a helpful relative to become Lloyd’s Names – private backers of insurance syndicates who, in return for standing behind the contracts, took a share of the often very considerable profits. They did this and prospered considerably in the first year of the investment, only to be rudely reminded the following year of the unlimited personal liability that the system entailed should claims paid out exceed premiums paid in. Re-insurance could take the sting out of most losses, but occasionally events just became too much, and the Names had to make good the deficit. People said that the loss of a ship off the Horn of Africa, closely followed by the grounding of a tanker on a reef off Kochi, consumed most of Mrs Bates’s capital. A series of destructive storms in Taiwan and Japan did the same for her daughter’s.

The response of Mrs Bates to this change in her fortunes was to more or less lose the power of speech. From being an enthusiastic conversationalist, she withdrew into a world of brooding silence, rarely opening her mouth other than to make occasional requests of her daughter. Miss Bates may have been upset by what had happened, but did not appear as traumatised as her mother. She had always been optimistic and cheerful, and continued to be so, very rarely, if ever, referring to their reduced circumstances, and bearing the indignities of genteel poverty – turned blouse collars, for instance – with remarkable fortitude.

Jane Fairfax’s own circumstances were similarly straitened. She was an orphan, and her misfortune was therefore twice that of Emma or Frank Churchill, both of whom had lost only one parent. She had, however, been supported by a generous and understanding family, the Campbells, who had made it their business to ensure that she was given a good general education and, most importantly, piano lessons. That, however, was all that they could provide, and Jane was every bit as hard up as Harriet Smith – more so, perhaps, as, unlike Harriet, she had not been working. Teaching English as a foreign language was her destiny too, it seemed, and she would be looking for a suitable job doing that at the end of the summer.

Emma had not met Jane Fairfax before, but had heard a great deal about her from Jane’s aunt. Miss Bates would talk on any topic with an equal degree of pleasure, but when it came to the subject of Jane her enthusiasm seemed to know no bounds.

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