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Seen the Crown chaise pass by
Hugh Thomson
1905
Photomechanical reproduction of a pen-and-ink drawing
12 by 8.5 cm (4 ⅜ by 3 ⅝ inches), vignetted
Jane Austen, Emma, facing page 347.
For passage illustrated and commentary, see below.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the accumulation of the ostler’s own knowledge, and the knowledge of the servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond soon after the return of the party from Box Hill — which messenger, however, had been no more than was expected; and that Mr. Churchill had sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming back beyond the next morning early; but that Mr. Frank Churchill having resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy going a good pace, and driving very steady.
There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it caught Emma’s attention only as it united with the subject which already engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill’s importance in the world, and Jane Fairfax’s, struck her; one was every thing, the other nothing — and she sat musing on the difference of woman’s destiny, and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss Bates’s saying,
“Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become of that? — Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now. — ‘You must go,’ said she. ‘You and I must part. You will have no business here. — Let it stay, however,’ said she; ‘give it houseroom till Colonel Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him; he will settle for me; he will help me out of all my difficulties.’ — And to this day, I do believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter’s.” [Chapter XLIV, 344]
Mrs Churchill's medical condition continues to constrain Frank's travels, and problems with his mount have forced him to use the chaise from the Crown Inn at Highbury to get to London rapidly. His time-sensitive mission is to arrange for the delivery of his grand Valetine's Day gift, a pianoforte, to his secret fiancé, Jane Fairfax, a talented pianist. It is so large that the Bates's apartments cannot conveniently accommodate it. When it finally arrives, everybody assumes that it is a gift from Jane's wealthy relatives, Colonel and Mrs. Campbell. The inn's ostler (right foreground) has reported to the Reverend Philip Elton that he saw Frank pass up the high street on his way to Richmond in the chaise.
Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. Austin Dobson. With forty pen-and-ink illustrations by Hugh Thomson. The Novels of Jane Austen. London: Macmillan, 1896, rpt. 1905.
Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. R. Brimley Johnson. With coloured illustrations by C. E. Brock. The Novels and Letters of Jane Austen. 2 vols. New York & Philadelphia: Frank S. Holby, 1906.
Austen, Jane. Emma. Ed. George Justice. 4th edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2011.
Austen, Jane. Emma: An Annotated Edition. Ed. Bharat Tandon. Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard U. P., 2012.
Last modified 29 May 2026