The former customer service representative in me is cringing...
“Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard’s, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Ford.—“Yes—no—yes, to Mrs. Goddard’s. Only my pattern gown is at Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then, Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.—And I could take the pattern gown home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directly—so it had better go to Hartfield—at least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels, Mrs. Ford, could not you?”
“It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two parcels.” (Emma)
“No more it is.”
“No trouble in the world, ma’am,” said the obliging Mrs. Ford.
Inside her head, the obliging Mrs. Ford repeated to herself, "The customer is always right... Miss Woodhouse and Smith spend a great deal of money here, never good to disagree with a customer..."
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'Knightley.' I could not have believed it. 'Knightley.' Never met him before in her life and calls him 'Knightley.' And to discover that he is a gentleman. Upstart, vulgar being, with her 'Mr. E' and her cara sposo.
EMMA. (2020) dir. Autumn de Wilde
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Okay, obviously I get why Emma gets to be the resident Disaster Matchmaker TM, but really John Thorpe gives her several runs for her money. He beats her in numbers of matches, execution, and production value accidentaly. Emma only managed to get Harriet's heart broken - twice. Thorpe's got it down to the details: he got Cathy the guy and a swoon worthy proposal. Cause if left to his own devices, Henry would have put together something sweet and heartfelt but simple, and Cathy would have been very happy of course, but she clearly doesn't mind a little bit of ✨romance✨. Thanks to Thorpe, she gets to brag forever that her husband loved her so much he bore being disowned and rode 70 miles on a horse to propose against his father's will.
Thorpe might be shooting in the dark, and aiming for the complete opposite goal, but d-mn it, he gets results, and I think he deserves to be the Austen Extended Universe Hipercompetent Matchmaking Menace TM. Not the least because, unlike Emma and every other Austen romantic rival, he has nothing else going for him.
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Ranking Jane Austen heroines/women on how good of a mother they’d be?
As with the men, I think they would all be good mothers, though in different ways.
Elizabeth Bennet: Soccer mom, she wasn't given the opportunity to have a structured education herself, it will be different for her kids. She's hiring the best governess she can find (after Darcy does a full background check), she's encouraging her kids to do extracurriculars, they will speak six languages that she doesn't understand or else! Has a minor panic attack if she says anything that sounds even remotely like something either of her parents would say.
Jane Bennet: Gentle mom, she cannot imagine punishing her children, she just has a killer disappointed face (she is unaware of this). Encourages her children to always try to understand both sides of the story. Will eventually fall for a lie one of her children tells and be devastated when she figures out the truth.
Anne Elliot: Perfect mother, there is indeed no one so proper, so capable as Anne. She has also watched her sister do everything wrong and she knows exactly how to do it right.
Emma Woodhouse: Scatterbrained mom, makes a resolution to teach her daughter fancy work but then gets distracted and the sampler is left half finished. Promised to read with her son but they only make it halfway through the novel. Good thing she hired an excellent "Miss Taylor" to pick up the slack! And despite her occasional screw-ups, her kids love her to pieces. They just better be on guard when they hit 18 and she starts trying to marry them off.
Marianne Dashwood: Crunchy mom, or whatever the Regency period equivalent would be. She wants her kids to feel the dead leaves between their toes, she encourages them to write poetry and play moving ballads. Otherwise, a lot like her own mother (they have very similar personalities)
Elinor Dashwood: I-Say-I-Love-You-With-Food Mom, she may not be exactly emotionally available, but she orders her daughter's favourite meal when she's sad and there are tiny hearts in the stiches of her son's clothes. She makes sure her kids are provided for, educated, and healthy. When she asks if they are hungry, they know she's saying, "I love you."
Fanny Price: Nurturing mom, she will be everything for those children that Edmund and William were to her, but nothing like Sir Thomas, Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris or her own parents. She has a good deal of experience from nursing her own siblings so it's a pretty smooth beginning.
Catherine Morland: Overconfident mom, Catherine has been there and done that, she has six younger brothers and sisters after all, she's READY! This will be easy! All you have to do is make sure the baby is fed, washed, changed, and napped... oh... it's a lot harder to do this when you have only slept for 2.5 hours last night... (I know she would have servants, but still, being a new mother is tough!)
Bonus: Jane Fairfax tries to keep Frank from spoiling the kids, but it is literally impossible. He keeps buying them huge presents and then she would be the bad guy for saying no. Also, she knows that Frank lost their child in Kensington Gardens (twice), that's why she always insists he take a footman now.
Bonus bonus: Harriet Smith has a special box where she keeps all the 'treasures' her kids collect. It is her most precious possession.
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