Emma

SCENE 1 -HIGHBURY

NARRATOR:

In a time when one's town was one's town was one's world...and the actions

at a dance excited greater interest than the movement of armies, there

lived a young woman, who knew how this world should be runned.

EMMA:

The most beautiful thing in the world is a match well made, and a happy

marriage to you both.

MRS WESTON:

Oh, thank you Emma. Your painting grows more accomplished every day.

EMMA:

You are very kind, but it would be all the better if I had practiced my

drawing more, as you urged me.

MRS WESTON:

It's very beautiful.

MR ELTON:

I should never take sides against you, Miss Woodhouse, but your friend is

right. It is indeed a job well done.

EMMA:

The job well done, Mr Elton was yours in performing the ceremony.

MR WOODHOUSE:

Must the church be so drafty, Mr Elton? It is very difficult to surrender

the soul when one is worried about one's throat.

MR ELTON:

Perhaps some tea and cake would revive you, Mr Woodhouse.

MR WOODHOUSE:

Miss Taylor! Surely you are not serving cake at your wedding! Far too rich!

You put us all at peril. And I am not alone in feeling so. Where is Mr

Penning, the apothecary, he will support me.

MRS WESTON:

He's over there, Mr Woodhouse, having some cake.

MR WOODHOUSE:

What?!

EMMA:

I have to take father home, but dear Miss Taylor-Oh, no! You are dear Miss

Taylor no more! You are dear Mrs Weston now! And how happy this must make

you. Such happiness this brings to all of us.

MRS WESTON:

My dear Emma!

SCENE 2-HARTFIELD

MR WOODHOUSE:

Poor Miss Taylor! She was so happy here. Why should she give up being your

governess, only to be married?

EMMA:

I am grown now. She cannot put up with my ill humors forever. She must wish

for children of her own.

MR WOODHOUSE:

You have no ill humors. Your own mother, God rest her, could be no more

real than Miss Taylor. Can she truly wish to give life to a mewling infant

who will import disease each time it enters the house? No, I say poor Miss

Taylor, and poor indeed she is.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

As an old friend of the family, I had to ask as soon as I got back: Who

cried the most at the wedding?

(later)

EMMA:

And how is my sister? Is your brother giving her the respect we Woodhouse

ladies deserve?

MR WOODHOUSE:

Poor Isabella. She was the first to leave me. No doubt that is where Miss

Taylor got the notion to go.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

Don't be too hard on Miss Taylor. It must be easier for her to have only

one to please than two.

EMMA:

Especially when one of us is such a troublesome creature.

MR WOODHOUSE:

Yes, I am. Most troublesome.

EMMA:

Dear papa, I could never mean you! Mr Knightley loves to find fault with

me, that's all. It's his idea of a joke.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

I am practically a brother to you Emma. It is not a brother's job to find

fault with his sister?

MR WOODHOUSE:

But where is the fault with you? Emma bears it well, but she is most sorry

to lose Miss Taylor.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

We would not like Emma so well if she did not miss her friend.

MR WOODHOUSE:

Thank you.

EMMA:

I shall miss her so. I do not know what I shall do without her.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

She's not far.

MR WOODHOUSE:

Almost half a mile.

EMMA:

Her obligations are there now. She cannot sit and talk with me in the old

way, or walk with me, or urge me to better myself.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

Well, that should not matter, as you always did just as you pleased.

EMMA:

Yes, but I shall miss her urging me. She was a selfless a friend as I have

ever had, and I hope to say someday that I have done half so much for

someone as Mrs Weston did for me.

MR KNIGHTLEY:

You must be happy that she settled so well.

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