Miss Martin

Posted on March 24, 2009

"The Coles had been settled some years in Highbury, and they were a very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, and only moderately genteel." Emma, Book 2, Chapter 7

"I shall always have a great regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth…" Emma, Book 1, Chapter 4

Dearest J-

Elizabeth Martin is a very good sort of girl. She has a lively spirit and a genteel manner which recommended her much to Mrs. George Knightley, known until October last as Emma Woodhouse. Miss Martin is the sister to her dear friend Harriet Smith, the new Mrs. Robert Martin. Elizabeth and Harriet are of the same age, 18, and had been the best of friends while students at Mrs. Goddards. They had experienced a coolness in their friendship the winter after Harriet had first refused to marry Robert Martin, but that was all forgotten now that they were sisters and living in the same house. In right of reason and fact, the Martins are a very happy, very respectable family. Mr. Martin is particularly blessed in his friendship to Mr. Knightley. This relationship bodes well for the Martins future generally. Specifically, almost as soon as the Knightleys married, Mrs. Knightley paid several visits to the farm and made a steady claim upon their friendship. The young ladies spend a good deal of time on parish duties with the poor and feeble which, somehow or other, seem to slip Mrs. Elton's attention. Emma found the sister of the man she had kept her dear friend from marrying, only last year, to be a very sensible and helpful young woman, more perhaps than…, but the less said here the better.

Many changes have come to the families of Highbury since I wrote you of the marriage of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax. Sadly, not long after her granddaughter's marriage, old Mrs. Bates went to her reward. Miss Bates was understandably distressed, but instantly elevated to a rapturous happiness, tempered with a very natural grief, expressed in equal fashion, to find herself living with her new family at Randalls. Mr. and Mrs. Weston felt that there was not too much they could do for the beloved aunt of their "Dear Jane." After Mr. Woodhouse had established it in his head, no one thought it too bad an idea. Miss Bates loves dear little Anna Weston with her whole heart and is a happy companion to the joys of the growing Randalls nursery.

The Eltons and the Coles console themselves for the loss of friends, and gossip about those friends, by spending more time with each other. Mr. Cole and Mr. Elton were, of course, often together on parish business with Weston and Knightley, but those two households, with young children from the London Knightleys--constantly underfoot, do not socialize as in recent years. The Coles and the Eltons, on the other hand, are always together. It's an odd relationship. Coles is a successful, gregarious businessman past his first and second youth, with a son, John Coles, Jr. in business with him and only a year or so younger than Mr. Elton himself. There are several younger children. The most promising is the second son, Roger, a steady young man destined for the church by an obliging aunt and uncle with an interest in it. Roger Coles looks to Mr. Elton as a guiding friend and proper connection, but he is not much with the two families. He spends most of his time at Oxford. This summer, however, he is enjoying a visit home, with all of the best gifts of season and youth, before returning to Oxford to begin his ordination...

It was increasingly important to his elder bother that Roger be about the business of his life and not "constantly underfoot." This statement, while typical of John, was not untrue. Mr. Roger had a definite affinity for business, a natural gift which had no outlet promised as he was, as the Coles' second son, to the church. Mr. John Coles, Jr. was less pleased with the quite life of Highbury, eager to be in Town were a man's worth was not so tied into archaic notions. He felt all the stings of the Knightleys and the Woodhouses, perhaps too much so. That too clear sense of distinction inferred, particularly, by young Mrs. George Knightley. She had snubbed his mother for years. Despite a recent change in this, he still felt a bit outraged by the distance Mrs. Knightley kept from his particular friend, the good Mrs. Elton. Mrs. Knightley was a snob, but she would learn that men such as the Coles were the future of England and not to be discounted.

Mr. John Coles spotted one of the Martin girls and his brother walking together near the south end of the Donwell property, headed in the direction of the Abbey Mill Farm. It was a sight all too familiar that summer in Highbury. Roger was a ridiculous fellow. Even if he was to be buried in the depths of Cornwall, in a small church parish, he could not be thinking of leaving his family with such near connections! John had little against Elizabeth, who was a pretty enough girl with a lively step, but her dowry and family were not sufficient for his brother. And then there was young Mrs. Martin, her sister, a bastard! It did not suit the junior Mr. Cole's opinion of himself, nor his vision of his families future, to be so closely aligned with the Martins. He would speak to Roger, and failing that--for Roger could be stubborn, he would talk to the girl herself. He would make her see the light and reason of Roger's spotless character being harmed by relation to her sister-in-law. He was sure he could make the chit agree and with this happy thought her stepped in to the vicarage yard to make his weekly call on his good friends, the Eltons.