CH 38 • Going into the supper

The ball at the Crown is so packed with circus acts and information that I must split it into more bite-sized bits.

But before I look at one small bit, I cannot help noting the big shift that happens in this chapter, which is almost like watching a river split into two separate streams. Mr. Knightley and Emma heading down one together, and Jane and Frank heading down the other. You have to pay a little more attention to see Jane and Frank, but unlike what I call “the piano scene,” there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening.

“My dear sir, you are too obliging.—Is there nobody you would not rather?—I am not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and me on the other!”

What we are lacking is the highly relevant context of Regency rules and customs.

The excerpt below is referring to Regency dinner parties, but the protocol is exactly the same in heading into dinner from the ballroom, and because the Westons are giving the ball, Frank is again handed an honor to bestow. (One that, curiously, Emma doesn’t seem very interested in. We have no idea at all where Emma sits, only that it isn’t near Mr. Knightley—or, apparently—Mr. Churchill.)

Guests were advised to not rise too eagerly, and women especially were advised to wait until the gentleman of the house requested you to pass into the drawing room. He would offer the lady of most distinction his hand. The [other] gentlemen then offered their arms to the ladies (protocol dictated that they take the arm of the lady who was their closest social equal) and conducted them as far as the table. Gentlemen of lesser status were advised not to offer their arm to the most handsome or distinguished lady as this was considered a great impoliteness.

The Procession into the dining room made guests aware of their relative social positions.

This is going to give Miss Bates’ monologue a lot more meaning. (And I love it when just a little extra information turns a passage from fuzzy black-and-white to technicolor.)

Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be heard from that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and taking up her spoon.

“Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?—Here is your tippet. Mrs. Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been done—One door nailed up—Quantities of matting—My dear Jane, indeed you must. Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!—so gratified! …”

And from here on out Frank is with Jane. And Miss Bates, of course. He really is very attentive to Jane. Running out to meet the carriage and escort them in. And now it appears he headed straight for her as soon as he could get there, and is immediately helping Jane with her tippet, like an attentive beaux. (And I am sure he is even more attentive after how infuriated he was at “that woman,” Mrs. Elton, leaving Jane behind after she had kept the Westons’ carriage from picking her up. But no, that is not for now. I must focus.)

So Frank had wanted Jane to arrive with him, escorted her in like a VIP when she did arrive, and is now going to escort her to dinner.

And since I have paid so much attention to Miss Bates, I guess I should flag that Frank is saying all his worry and angst is about Miss Bates, but by this point I feel like Miss Bates has primarily shifted from a blind to a sort of comic lie that Frank isn’t even trying to get anyone to buy anymore. Frank is too much like his father to be fond of secrets, and I believe him when he says he thought Emma knew the truth, because he’s not even trying to fool her anymore. Tomorrow he will tell her he borrowed some scissors from Miss Bates at some point on this night. (And that may be the more credible half of that whopper.) It’s like he thinks the “wink, wink” is inherent in the lies, just part of a code understood on both sides.

But I’m drifting again.

Frank rushed to the carriage for Miss Bates, he says, but although we may not see quite through to Jane during that sequence on the first read, I don’t think we really believe he’s got Miss Bates on the brain to that extent, either. And from now on, although she still does her juggling act here and there, she is mostly straight comedy, good information, and increasingly, someone we like and want good things for.

Mrs. Elton thinks the ball is for her, Emma thinks it’s for her, but really, it’s Frank’s ball and he showing the only person who matters exactly who it’s for. For her. It’s all for her. Everything is for Jane. Always.

But Miss Bates hasn’t caught on yet. Frank is still just walking with them at this point, not escorting them. Still, after tonight, Miss Bates will show signs of having figured them out.

But now she’s just talking. Narrating.

“…Excellent dancing indeed!—Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and nobody missed me.—I set off without saying a word, just as I told you. Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a vast deal of chat, and backgammon.—Tea was made downstairs, biscuits and baked apples and wine before she came away: amazing luck in some of her throws: and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were amused, and who were your partners. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘I shall not forestall Jane; I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway; she will love to tell you all about it herself to-morrow: her first partner was Mr. Elton, I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.’…”

It’s natural to listen closely to who Miss Bates says Jane’s partners were, and of course we’re not going to get, “Frank Churchill,” but Mr. Elton as the first is at least mildly enlightening.

Mr. Weston and Mrs. Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed. Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton…

(Yes, I am often cutting right before the thoughts of Emma’s that we all instinctively want to point and laugh at. They’re catnip. But we know who the ball was for, and we are jedis and focused.)

First to walk to the center of the dance floor are Mr. Weston and Mrs. Elton.

Right behind them, Frank and Emma.

Third on the floor next to Frank and Emma? Mr. Elton and Miss Jane Fairfax seems the obvious answer.

Unimportant in itself, but one of the many little pebbles there to pick up and examine if you so wish. A wink. (And because Jane Austen never tells us one thing when she can tell us two or three, the primary thing it reminds of, of course, is that Mr. Elton’s dancing days weren’t over yet.)

Back to the walk to supper.

“My dear sir, you are too obliging.—Is there nobody you would not rather?—I am not helpless.”

“Is there nobody you would not rather? I am not helpless.”

Poor Miss Bates simply cannot figure out what is going on. Why is Frank Churchill trying to take her arm? The gentleman of the house takes the arm of the most distinguished lady of the highest rank, and although there is now some fudging about whether Mr. Weston or Mr. Churchill is at the top of the bill, Frank is close enough, and everyone there understands how this works.

Remember in Pride and Prejudice when Lydia told Jane, “I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman”? They were “passing into the hall from the dining-parlour” and Lydia took her mother’s right hand—because Mrs. Bennet has clear precedence in this little group—and Lydia squeezes firstborn Jane out of the way. That’s how ingrained into society this custom was. Even at home it was just a thing you did. But at a party or a ball, it took on much greater significance. I once read a short story when I was younger that had as part of the plot a woman being very angry at the insult and embarrassment of being shirked by the gentleman throwing a dinner party when he escorted a prettier woman of inferior rank to the table. In front of everyone! It was a humiliation that she made a big deal over—all for laughs—for the rest of the story.

”Is there nobody you would not rather?” Poor Miss Bates. Whatever else she may get confused about, she well understands where she ranks on the class ladder. Frank helping Jane out with her tippet is one thing, but it is inconceivable that Frank Churchill is trying to confer the “Guest of Honor” title onto Miss Bates. Inconceivable in the literal sense. She simply cannot process this wad of information. She’s desperately trying to figure it out and thinking aloud, as always.

“I am not helpless.” Miss Bates is just blinking “ERROR, ERROR, ERROR” at this point, trying to make sense of what Frank is doing, and not having any success. Why is he taking her arm? Since it can’t be to escort her into supper, maybe he thinks she’s about to fall over?

And now she must also be starting to feel eyes on them, or at least anticipating the eyes that will be on them in a moment if he keeps acting crazy.

He keeps acting crazy.

But it does at least change into a crazy she can kind of compute.

“Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and me on the other!”

Frank has been pretty careful about doing anything publicly that might give the game away, but the most animated he gets in his later letter to Mrs. Weston is over Mrs. Elton’s treatment of Jane. And before the dancing starts he breaks character completely for the first time to exclaim about Mrs. Elton calling Miss Fairfax “Jane,” because at that point he is basically seething. It’s pretty clear even on a first read, although it’s harder to make sense of, how agitated he is to see Jane, how upset he is that she was left behind by the Eltons, his rush to meet her carriage outside and escort her in, almost like a, shall we say, date? —Lady the ball is being given in honor of? Frank clearly resented the hell out of seeing Jane being treated as an inferior by Mrs. Elton in particular, and any slap he can give her right now is an added bonus, if not main motivator. It’s like he wants to say, “Oh, you think, lady?”

And he’s right. I can’t stand it, either. But we both have to take it a little longer, because the deference of Miss Bates is more insistent than Frank’s polite gravitas.

“—Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is going; dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!—Beautiful lace!—Now we all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!”

Ouch. That must have hurt. He meant to be first in with his lady on his arm and I feel certain the insult to Mrs. Elton was a dessert he was craving, but Miss Bates innocently sabotaging him here will make it more satisfying when we get there.

“Well, here we are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no, there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd! I was convinced there were two, and there is but one.”

No, there is nothing hidden there. I just love Miss Bates narrating stairs and passages. (And sometimes passersby.)

And then there’s another funny bit about Mr. Woodhouse taking away a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and asparagus because he didn’t think the asparagus was boiled enough, but she doesn’t want it to get around to Miss Woodhouse that Mrs. Bates was disappointed because Miss Woodhouse would be so very much concerned!

“Where I sit is of no consequence”

Then we’re in the dining room.

“Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have supposed any thing!—Such elegance and profusion!—I have seen nothing like it since—Well, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere, so that Jane is not in a draught. Where I sit is of no consequence.”

“The worst seats will do, so long as Jane has no outside air anywhere near her.” Miss Bates cannot help herself. Her entire self-perception is almost a perma-grovel. And this is one of the most obvious moments of seeing how much she accidentally classes Jane as as lowly as she sees herself, but to the rest of Highbury, Jane is a bit of a Rorschach test. The “oldest and the best families,” as Emma would call them—and including Emma—all see Jane as “Miss Fairfax.” Elegant. Superior. Born to unfortunate circumstances, certainly, but it’s like that’s just an annoying detail. She is still a lady of superior rank. Certainly that is how she has lived most of her life, and how Frank encountered her and sees her. But Miss Bates, who can’t see herself as anything but a humble woman fortunate to have such charitable friends, expects the same treatment of Jane, and instinctively, with a thousand little signals and some large ones, unknowingly courts that treatment for her niece. And Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Elton —clawing their way up and happy to have anyone underneath them—respond to Miss Bates’ image of Jane, and treat Jane as Miss Bates, herself, expects to be treated.

And although I at first gave Emma hell in my notes over her thinking about the Coles, because she is unambiguously ridiculous about them, like many other things, she’s right about them but in the wrong way. And we know this from sources other than Emma. The Coles and Eltons treat Jane as inferior when no one else does, and here Austen is particularly pointing out the way Miss Bates’ own inferiority complex impacts Jane, because Miss Bates makes a very specific point of also bowing down a little at the Coles’ altar right before this.

“Who can this be?—very likely the worthy Coles.”

And that was what Mrs. Weston suspected was happening with Miss Bates and Mrs. Elton. Miss Bates can’t protect Jane from Mrs. Elton, because she’s completely deferential to her and doesn’t get that she’s not all she thinks she is. And I think the reason Austen is highlighting it is the same reason she has Mr. Collins write a letter to the Bennets saying, “Boy, glad I didn’t marry Lizzy.” Because readers in Austen’s time would have internalized all these slights, these bruises to the ego and pride of Jane and her humble aunt, so that when Mrs. Elton visits Jane at the end of the book—being much nicer than usual—and then Miss Bates comes in, we can feel Miss Bates’ joy (but still humble joy) at her elevation and see that Mrs. Elton is going to have to find someone new to bully.

“—only it seems too good—but just as you please. What you direct in this house cannot be wrong.”

So Frank leads them to whatever he thinks the very best seats are, and Miss Bates goes straight to eating. And I think Frank and Jane had a lovely dinner. (Somehow unseen or unthought of by Emma.)

“Oh! do you recommend this side?—Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchill—only it seems too good—but just as you please. What you direct in this house cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning.”

Frank succeeds. He has shown Jane and everyone else who the queen is tonight.

(And although it cannot be commented on by a narrator without denting the story, it happened and would have bothered Mrs. Elton to no end. That’s enough for me.)

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There is so much more in the first part of the ball. Miss Bates’ monologue alone is sort of overwhelming to think about tackling, but I will. As soon as I can.