Читать книгу Эмма. Уровень 3 / Emma - Джейн Остин, Сет Грэм-Смит - Страница 3

Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family, which for the last two or three generations had been rising into gentility and property. When the chances of his military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill[16], of a great Yorkshire[17] family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprised, except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were full of pride and importance.

Miss Churchill, however, being of age, was not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with due decorum. It was an unsuitable connection, and did not produce much happiness. Mrs. Weston did not stop loving her husband, but she wanted at once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill.

When Captain Weston's wife died, after a three years' marriage, he was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, having no children of their own, offered to take little Frank[18] in soon after his mother's death.

Mr. Weston engaged in trade. He had a small house in Highbury, where he spent most of his days off; and so the next eighteen or twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, bought a little estate adjoining Highbury, enough to marry a woman as Miss Taylor, and to live happily.

As to Frank, he took name of Churchill. It was most unlikely, therefore, that he should ever want his father's assistance. Mr. Weston saw his son every year in London, and was proud of him. Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts[19] of Highbury. His coming to visit his father had been often talked of but never achieved. Now, upon his father's marriage, it was very generally proposed, that the visit should take place.