Charles and Emma (5 page)

A few months into his trip, when he collected his mail at a port of call in Rio de Janeiro, he read a letter from his sister Catherine. She informed him that Fanny Owen had married someone else. He was stunned. Although he hadn't written to her yet, and probably had already decided not to marry her, the shock of her marrying someone else so soon was unsettling to him. When he wrote to his sister Caroline, he made light of the news. “It may be all very delightful to those
concerned but as I like unmarried women better than those in the blessed state, I vote it a bore…” But by the end of that letter, he confessed his dismay. “I am at a loss what to think or say.”

He got over it fairly quickly, though, preoccupied with his adventures and his collections. Besides, he knew that Fanny would not have cared at all about that giant sloth head he had found in Punta Alta. He and Fanny would not have been a good match. It would have been a disaster. But she had been his first love and five years later when he got back from his voyage, he thought about her again. He even went so far as to send her flowers. He heard from the family grapevine that his gift left her speechless. She was miserable; her marriage was loveless.

Now, in July 1838, as he headed toward Maer, he knew that the woman he married would have to be one who would not fight his passion for beetles and beaks of finches. He had loved natural history since he was a boy; he wrote late in life, “my love of natural science has been steady and ardent.” He didn't want a wife who would fight him for attention; but he also couldn't bear the thought of an unhappy marriage. Maybe it would all work out with Emma—if she didn't mind his nose, and if he managed to conceal his religious doubts.

When Charles arrived at the beautiful stone house of Maer, Emma and Elizabeth were preparing for a charity bazaar. Charles helped them choose dishes and knickknacks, and clean them for sale. But he thought most of the things were quite ugly. He teased them and told them he did not think they would make much money selling such horrid items. He refused to buy anything unless the honor of his family demanded he do so. The Wedgwood women were not offended. They enjoyed him very much for his charm and high spirits as well as for his forthrightness and openness.

One evening during the visit, Charles pulled Emma into the library—where she had spent many hours reading history, philosophy, French, and her favorite novels (she loved Jane Austen). Charles and Emma had an intimate talk, a “goose,” as they called it, by the fire. A man and a woman alone by the fire was a sure sign of something. They talked quietly for a long time, but Charles did not bring up the subject of marriage.

Emma felt that if they saw more of each other, Charles would really like her. But she had no idea that he was thinking about proposing to her. Unlike the young women in the novels of Jane Austen, Emma Wedgwood was not mooning over Charles or plotting for a marriage. No one else was plotting on her behalf, either. Back when she had received those four or five marriage proposals, she had gotten “quite weary of it” One of the men who proposed, a curate who lived near Maer, was so upset when she turned him down that he walked Elizabeth around and around the pond in tears, asking what Emma thought was wrong with him. He was just not good enough to tear Emma away from her life at Maer. Nor were the others. It would take a special man to pry Emma away from home.

 

Chapter 5

Little Miss Slip-Slop

 

I love Maer much too well not to be glad
always when I come home.

—F
ANNY
W
EDGWOOD, FROM
G
ENEVA,
TO HER MOTHER
, J
ANUARY
1827

 

W
hen he got back to London, Charles received a note from Emma, reporting on the success of the bazaar. He answered her, “My dear Emma, Many thanks for the news of the Bazaar, and for Elizabeth's purchases…I am glad to hear there were some few uglier things at the Bazaar than those you took.” In newly industrialized England, riding the trains was an adventure and an unpredictable thing, so he reported on his trip. “I was altogether disappointed with the railroad—it was so rough and so much plague with the many changes.”

And then he let his heart show a little. “This Marlborough St is a forlorn place.—We have no ducks here, much less geese, and as for that sentimental fat goose we ate over the Library fire,—the like of it seldom turns up.—I feel the same spiteful joy at hearing you have had no other geese.”

He continued, “Pray remember I consider myself invited to Maer, the next time I come down into the country.—in fact, I think I have been so often that I have a kind of vested right, so see me you will, and we will have another goose.”

But what did he mean when he said that their “goose” was so nice, of the kind that seldom turn up? Was he telling her something? Emma didn't think so. She figured she and Charles would go on for years, having geese by the fire and staying friends. That was fine with her. She was content to stay at Maer Hall with Elizabeth, playing the piano, reading, doing needlework, and taking care of their beloved mother, who was bed-ridden and very ill.

Emma had been born into the carefree, happy, supportive Wedgwood family on May 2, 1808. She was the youngest. She had four brothers and three sisters (a fourth older sister had died as a baby)—Elizabeth, Josiah, Charlotte, Harry, Frank, Hensleigh, and Fanny. She was closest to Fanny, who was only two years older than she was. They were inseparable, spending almost every moment together from the time Emma was born. The family often spoke of them as if they were one person. They called them the Dovelies or Miss Salt and Miss Pepper.

But Emma and Fanny were quite different. Fanny was short and not thought to be as pretty as Emma, though she was “most radiant in her person and brilliant in her colouring,” according to their Aunt Jessie. We can imagine rosy cheeks and bright eyes. She was a quiet, gentle, and good person, organized and industrious. She made lists all the time: lists of temperatures, words in different languages, sights seen on travels, chores to be done. Her father called her his little secretary; her mother's nickname for her was Mrs. Pedigree. As she got older, people in the family thought she'd be a good match for her cousin Charles, also an organizer, a collector, and a list maker.

On the other hand, Emma's nickname was Little Miss Slip-Slop. She was disorganized, and a slob. But she was brilliant, learned easily, and when she liked something, she put her all into it. At only five, she started reading a favorite classic of the day, John Milton's epic poem
Paradise Lost.
Telling the story later, some relatives said she read the whole thing, others said she started it and asked her mother to finish reading it to her. Either way, it certainly was not typical reading material for so young a child.

Paradise
Lost
begins:

 

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden…

 

Paradise Lost
is the story of Adam and Eve's disobedience and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. It explores fate, sin, heaven, and hell. (Charles also loved
Paradise Lost
—when he was older. He took a pocket-sized edition with him on his voyage and carried it in his jacket whenever he went ashore.)

Emma's large extended family loved both of “the little girls” (as they were called into their twenties), but Emma was a favorite. She was lively and high-spirited, yet had a serenity and a good nature that never seemed to get ruffled. She did not put up with nonsense, though, and she called things as she saw them. At ten, Emma wrote to her brother about a family she and Fanny were staying with: “I like the Coloes very except the youngest Louis who bothers one very much.”

Both girls read voraciously, pulling book after book off the Maer library shelves. And, in the few hours of the morning set aside for lessons, they learned French, Italian, and German.
Emma was good at everything she took up—languages, archery, skating, needlework, horseback riding—but her great talent was music. She played the piano, and although she didn't work very hard at it—she played for only about an hour a day—she was so good that when she was older, she took lessons from the famous pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin. Her daughter Etty later said that Emma's piano playing clearly reflected her character: She played with a fine, crisp touch, with intelligence and simplicity. She put vigor and spirit into her playing, but not sentimental passion. Emma didn't like sentimentality.

When they were little, Emma was sure that Fanny was a better person than she. Fanny was inherently Good. Emma brooded over her own flaws, in contrast to what she considered Fanny's moral superiority. One time an older cousin brought three brooches for Fanny, Emma, and another young cousin. Fanny had first choice, and Emma watched as she chose the least pretty pin. Emma's turn came next, and rather than leave the prettiest pin for her cousin, as her older sister had done, she took it for herself. She felt badly about this and regretted it her whole life.

But Fanny adored Emma, too. After taking care of the Dovelies for a while, one of their great-aunts wrote to their mother:

 

I marvel at the strength of the girls' spirits as much as I do at the perfection of their tempers. I feel now very sure that not only not a cross word ever passes between them, but that an irritable feeling never arises. Fanny, to be sure, is calmness itself, but the vivacity of Emma's feelings, without perfectly knowing her, would make me expect that Fanny's reproofs, which she often gives with an elder sister air, would ruffle her a little; but I have never seen that
expressive face take the shadow of an angry look, and I do think her love for Fanny is the prettiest thing I ever saw.

 

The aunt went on to say that Emma's character was shaped by her closeness to Fanny.

 

I ascribe much of Emma's joyous nature to have been secured, if not caused, by Fanny's yielding disposition; had the other met with a cross or an opposing sister there was every chance that with her ardent feelings, her temper had become irritable. Now she is made the happiest being that ever was looked on, and so much affection in her nature as will secure her from selfishness.

 

Fanny was not only generous, she was also more religious than Emma. Although both girls taught in the little village Sunday school, Fanny took it more seriously, as she did her confirmation at sixteen. Emma was more interested in parties and plays. Right after her confirmation, Emma and her Darwin cousins celebrated with a party at Maer. They put on a play,
The Merry Wives of Windsor,
and had so much fun that Emma's mother complained they kept her “in such a whirl of noise, and ins and outs, that I have not found any leisure.”

The sisters enjoyed traveling, and when they were nineteen and twenty-one, they went to Geneva, Switzerland, and spent eight months with their favorite aunt, Jessie, and her eccentric Italian husband, J. C. de Sismondi. Aunt Jessie and Sismondi were deeply in love and had no children, so they showered their love and attention on the Dovelies. They introduced them into society and took them to fancy parties. After one ball, Emma wrote home to Elizabeth:

 

The whole Theatre was quite full and it looked very pretty. We were to dance with whoever asked us. The first man I
danced with was very disagreeable and vulgar, which put me rather in despair for the rest of the ball; however the rest of my partners were very tidy, so I liked it very well. I had the good luck to dance with one or two Englishmen…When I was afraid any particularly horrid-looking man was going to ask me to dance I began such a very earnest conversation with Fanny that they could not interrupt me…

 

When it was time for the girls to leave Geneva, their father arrived to escort them home, bringing along Caroline Darwin for company. Afterward, Caroline wrote them a letter that she began “My dear Fanny and Emma,” and then she added in parentheses, “I know you like being classed together, and as Charlotte and Eliz. to this day speak of you both as if you were but
one,
I shall follow their example.” The sisters, different as could be,
were
as one, and happily so.

All in all, what Jane Austen says about Emma Woodhouse in the opening paragraph of her novel
Emma
could have been said about Emma Wedgwood:

 

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress and vex her.

 

Emma Wedgwood had lived until she was twenty
-four
with nothing at all to distress her. But in the summer of 1832, everything changed for the Dovelies.

 

Chapter 6

The Next World

 

The sorrows and distresses of life…soften and humanize
the heart, to awaken social sympathy, to generate
all the Christian virtues.

—T
HOMAS
R
OBERT
M
ALTHUS
,
A
N
E
SSAY on

THE
P
RINCIPLE OF
P
OPULATION
,
1798

 

A
t twenty-four and twenty-six, Emma and Fanny lived at home with their parents and their older sister Elizabeth. That August, in 1832, while Jos and Bessy were away, Fanny got sick.

At first nobody at Maer thought it was anything to be worried about. And Elizabeth and Emma were both experienced at taking care of sick people. Elizabeth was thirty-six. She had spent years nursing the poor in the village. Emma was often her assistant. So they thought nothing of caring for Fanny themselves, even though it could not have been easy with no running water or flush toilets.