‘I’d better get on,’ said Robert, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. ‘We’re short-handed. We’ve got one Polish girl at the moment and that’s it.’

‘They work so hard,’ said Emma, and thought, Unlike me.

Robert agreed. ‘She’s fantastic.’

Emma placed her order, which appeared on her table quickly. At the end of the meal, as Robert took away her plate, she said what she had come to say. ‘Do you get any time off? This afternoon?’

The question took him by surprise. ‘Yes. A bit. I have to be back to help with dinner, though.’

‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

She tried to seem casual. ‘Because I wondered if you’d like to drop by my place. Tea, maybe.’

He looked at his watch. ‘I could come at four, or maybe a bit earlier.’

‘Do you play tennis?’

‘I used to – a bit.’

‘Bring trainers.’

She rose from her chair and gave him her credit card for the bill. He seemed puzzled by her invitation, but was polite. A certain distance, though, crept into his tone, as may happen when one accepts an invitation that one is not sure about, that is suspected of concealing an agenda.

Emma left. Now she telephoned Harriet and issued her invitation. Again she was careful to sound casual. ‘If you’re dong nothing, come round to my place. I’ll maybe ask one or two other people. Tea – something like that. Maybe a game of tennis – bring some trainers. We’ve got racquets.’

‘I didn’t know you had a tennis court.’

‘We do. It’s at the back of the house, near one of the barns. I hardly ever use it. I’m a hopeless player.’

Harriet said that she would come by bicycle. One of the students had lent her an electric bicycle and she would ride over on that.

‘It’s such fun to use,’ Harriet said. ‘I’ll give you a go, Emma, if you’d like. You can have a go and I’ll watch.’

It was such a childish invitation, thought Emma, but then she said, ‘Thanks, Harriet, I’d love to. You could show me how.’

‘Oh, it’s easy. It’s just like riding a bicycle.’

‘It is a bicycle.’

‘Oh, silly me, of course it is.’

Mr Woodhouse said, ‘I’m going out. What are you doing?’

‘I’ve invited a couple of people round. We might play tennis later on.’

They looked at each other with interest; he because he wondered who her guests would be, and she because he very rarely went out.

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Harriet.’

‘And who else?’

‘Robert Martin – you know, his parents run the Oak Tree Inn. They …’

‘I know exactly who they are,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘They had the health inspectors in there last year. They looked very closely at the kitchen.’

‘I’m sure it’s pretty clean. It seems well run.’

‘Oh, I’m not suggesting that it’s not well run, but why, one wonders, would the health inspectors be there? Somebody must have called them.’

She did not think that this necessarily followed. ‘They can do random checks. If I were a health inspector, I’d descend without notice.’

‘In my view,’ said Mr Woodhouse, ‘somebody must have experienced a stomach problem and reported it. Diarrhoea. I read that book about what goes on in restaurants and hotel kitchens. Yes, I read all about it. It would make your hair stand on end. Apparently twenty per cent of people who eat in restaurants get diarrhoea as a result. Twenty per cent, Emma!’ He paused to allow the statistic to sink in. ‘Now that’s an average across the country – just imagine, just imagine what the figure for London must be like. Much, much higher. Probably something of the order of fifty or sixty per cent, I should imagine.’ He shook his head at the thought. ‘One eats at one’s peril in London.’

Emma tried not to smile; she knew that if she smiled, her father would say: ‘Diarrhoea is nothing to smile about.’

‘But Isabella lives in London,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t spend all her time in the loo. We would have heard about it if she did. And John and the children – they don’t look as if they have diarrhoea.’

‘Diarrhoea is nothing to smile about, Emma,’ he said. ‘It can kill, you know. Look what it did in India during those great cholera epidemics in the nineteenth century. That’s when Dr Collis Brown invented that chlorodyne of his. He knew how to deal with diarrhoea.’

Emma looked at her watch. ‘But what about you, where are you going?’

He waved a hand in the direction of Holt. ‘For a drive. I might call in somewhere for tea. Who knows?’

She looked at him sideways. ‘Be careful. Remember what happened to Philip. Avoid ditches.’

This brought a sympathetic reaction. ‘Poor Philip. I gather that he really misses being behind the wheel of his BMW Something-something. Sid said that he saw him being driven around in the village by that new friend of his, Hazel. Apparently she reversed all the way down the High Street for some reason, with Philip directing her from the back seat.’

‘The important thing is that they should be happy,’ said Emma.

‘That’s very kind of you. Is this a new Emma?’

The remark, not intended critically, went home, and stung. A new Emma, not unkind like the old Emma …

Harriet arrived first, as Emma had planned, riding the electric bicycle up to the front door and coming to a halt with a flourish.

‘I hardly had to pedal,’ she said. ‘You just sit there and this little electric thingy does all the work.’

They went inside. ‘I put the net up on the court,’ said Emma. ‘And I found you a racquet and one for Robert.’

They had been walking down the corridor towards Emma’s sitting room. Harriet stopped. ‘Robert?’ she said.

Emma looked innocent. ‘Robert Martin. You know him, of course.’

Harriet was flustered. ‘Yes, yes … Robert.’

Emma shrugged. ‘I’m not sure if he plays much tennis – I don’t think he does, but I asked him anyway.’ She paused. Harriet had coloured. She was blushing. ‘Have you seen him recently?’

Harriet did not answer, but suddenly continued on her way down the corridor. Emma followed.

‘I have to speak to you,’ Harriet said when they reached the sitting room. ‘I have a confession to make, Emma. You’re the closest friend I have at the moment and I’ve been deceiving you. I feel awful, but I have to tell you.’

Emma gestured for her to sit down, and then joined her friend on the sofa. ‘So?’

‘I hate to deceive people,’ said Harriet.

‘Nobody likes doing that.’

‘You see, you’ve been so kind to me, Emma.’

Emma wanted to tell her to get on with it, but did not.

Harriet sounded as if she was close to tears. ‘And then I go and reward you by going against your advice.’

‘What advice?’

‘The advice you gave me about Robert. I’ve been seeing Robert all along.’

Emma’s immediate reaction was one of relief. The whole point of the game of tennis had been to bring them together because she thought that they were right for each other. ‘Great,’ she said. ‘That’s really great.’

Harriet’s demeanour registered her surprise. ‘You think it’s a good idea?’

Emma reached out to touch Harriet on the forearm. ‘Of course I do. He’s really nice. I think that he and you are ideally suited. It’s perfect.’

Harriet uttered a cry of joy. ‘That’s such good news! Such good news!’

‘I’m glad you’re pleased.’

‘Robert and I are going to go off on a gap year together – in a year’s time. We’re going to go to New Jersey for a couple of months and then on to Canada. Robert’s uncle has a motel in New Jersey – we might be able to stay with him for a while and help him. Then we’re going to go to Banff, where Robert has cousins. They stayed with Robert’s parents and they’re keen to reciprocate. It’s good if you can pay people back for things, isn’t it, Emma?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Emma. ‘It’s good to pay back.’

Harriet’s smile faded. ‘There’s another thing.’

Emma looked at her. ‘Yes?’

‘George Knightley.’

Emma stiffened. Had Harriet been seeing George behind her back too? That would be another matter altogether, and the sweetness and light of the moment might prove short-lived.

‘I’ve been talking to him,’ said Harriet. ‘And we were going to meet in a couple of days’ time.’

‘I know that,’ said Emma quietly, and thought: You were going to meet him wearing the cashmere jersey dress that I bought you – and the suede ankle boots too.

‘George likes you,’ said Harriet. ‘And I’ve been encouraging him.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Emma. ‘I’m not quite with you.’

‘I said to him that he should let you know how he feels. I was going to arrange to have you both round for dinner at Mrs God’s.’

Emma stared at her. ‘You were matchmaking?’

Harriet giggled. ‘Yes, I suppose you could call it that.’

Emma drew in her breath. ‘You thought that I needed your help?’

‘I wouldn’t say you needed it, but I thought it might be useful.’ Harriet paused, studying Emma’s reaction to her words. ‘It’s the same with Mrs God and your father. I did my best to bring them together. He’s there right now.’

‘He’s with her? With Mrs God?’

Harriet nodded. ‘They’re like a couple of love-birds.’ She reached out to Emma. ‘You’re not cross with me, are you, Emma? Please say that you’re not cross with me.’

Emma Woodhouse, pretty, clever, and rich, was cross with her friend Harriet Smith, but reminded herself that Harriet had very little in this life, even if she had the faithful affection of Robert Martin, a good friend in Mrs God, and all the attention that exceptional looks can bring. That was something, but it was so much less that she, Emma, had and therefore it was grounds for the dulling of anger. So Emma forgave Harriet, and reminded herself that she had done worse herself, not least to Harriet. It had been an important summer for Emma, as it had been the summer during which moral insight came to her – something that may happen to all of us, if it happens at all, at very different stages of our lives. This had happened because she had been able to make that sudden imaginative leap that lies at the heart of our moral lives: the ability to see, even for a brief moment, the world as it is seen by the other person. It is this understanding that lies behind all kindness to others, all attempts to ameliorate the situation of those who suffer, all those acts of charity by which we make our lives something more than the pursuit of the goals of the unruly ego.