Part 25

Tried as Emma is, her good sense does not forsake her; she will not believe in her own and Mr. Knightley’s loss, so long as unbelief is possible. To continue to discuss the matter with Harriet is intolerable. She contrives to keep Harriet away from Hartfield.

A visit from Mrs. Weston is a distraction to Emma’s cares, though it is no longer of the importance it would have been before the last miserable discovery.

Mrs. Weston comes with the news of the Westons’ visit to the Bateses. Very great had been the evident distress and confusion of _the_ lady, while the innocent satisfaction and delight of her grandmother and aunt had been almost touching.

Jane Fairfax had spoken with energy to Mrs. Weston on the misery she had suffered during the concealment for so many months. This was one of her expressions:--“I will not say that since I have entered into the engagement I have not had some happy moments, but I can say that I have never known the blessing of one tranquil hour.”[62]

She had added:--“After all the punishment that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. The fortunate turn that everything has taken, and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me ought not to be. Do not imagine, madam, that I was taught wrong. I shall dread making the story known to Colonel Campbell.”

Emma is softened. “Poor girl! her affection must have overpowered her judgment.”

Mrs. Weston’s communications increase Emma’s esteem, compassion, and sense of past injustice to Jane Fairfax. To all her other regrets and sources of self-reproach is added the sense of having missed, by a feeling of jealousy, the friendship with Jane--marked out by equality of birth, abilities, and education, which all her friends had proposed for her, and which might have been of benefit to both girls. Instead, Emma had preferred the unsuitable, humble companionship and worship of Harriet Smith; and what has come of it?

V.

A cold, stormy rain sets in, stripping the July trees and shrubs. Mr. Woodhouse, whose spirits are easily affected by the weather, is more than usually dependent on cheering, at the very time that visitors fail. Emma, struggling to do a loving daughter’s part, cannot prevent herself from foreseeing how much more deserted Hartfield must soon prove. Mrs. Weston’s baby will engross her, and supersede even Emma in her friend’s affections. Both Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax will be gone from Highbury; and--far worst change of all, Mr. Knightley will be no longer walking in at all hours, when he has Harriet to keep him company at Donwell. And if he can be content with Harriet, only one reflection can increase Emma’s wretchedness--that it has been all her own work.

The rainy clouds clear away the following afternoon, and Emma seizes the opportunity of Mr. Perry’s calling and sitting with her father, to stroll out into the shrubbery--where the first thing she sees is Mr. Knightley passing the garden gate and coming towards her. She had not heard of his return from London, but she must be collected and calm. (Emma is a girl who possesses much self-respect and womanly dignity.)

Mr. Knightley, on his side, does not look cheerful; but he is perfectly capable of conversing quietly, as he turns and walks with her.

Emma fancies that he wishes to talk to her of Harriet, and shrinks from leading the way in the conversation, but braces herself to follow when he takes the initiative. It is only his recurring fits of silence she cannot bear.

She considers; tries to smile, and refers to some news for him to hear, which ought to surprise him.

If she means Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, he has heard that already, he tells her shortly.

Emma is relieved, but as she reminds him that he had once tried to give her a caution, and she wishes she had attended to it, her voice sinks and she sighs, adding, “I seem doomed to blindness.”

She suddenly finds her arm drawn within his and pressed, and hears him fairly faltering, “Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound--the feelings of the warmest friendship--indignation--abominable scoundrel!”

Emma[63] must undeceive him instantly.

“You are very kind, but you are mistaken. I am not in want of that sort of compassion. I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures; but I have no other reason to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”

“Emma,” he cries eagerly, “are you indeed----” but checking himself, “No, no. I understand you: forgive me. I am pleased that you can even say so much. He is no object of regret. I could only be certain there was a preference. He is a disgrace to the name of man, and is he to be rewarded with that sweet young woman?”

Emma has to renew her protestations, striving for the old liveliness to carry off her sense of awkwardness.

“I am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse. But I never have.”

Her companion says nothing, and Emma, to convince him, recapitulates earnestly the true particulars of the case--Frank’s being the son of Mr. Weston, his having been continually at Hartfield; the fact that his attentions flattered her, even after she had come to look on them as a habit, a trick, nothing that had called for seriousness on her part. He had imposed on her, still he had not taken her in, in the serious meaning of the words.

Mr. Knightley grows cooler, and admits he may have underrated Frank Churchill. With such a woman he has a chance. He is a fortunate man, at three-and-twenty to have drawn a prize. Everything turns out well for him. “He meets with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even weary her by negligent treatment; and had he and all his family sought round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found her superior. His aunt is in the way. His aunt dies. He has only to speak; his friends are eager to promote his happiness. He has used everybody ill, and they are all delighted to forgive him.”

“You speak as if you envied him,” exclaims Emma.

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”

Emma can say no more; they seem within half a sentence of Harriet. Emma wishes to change the subject, and speaks of the children in Brunswick Square.

But he is too fast for her. “You will not ask me what is the point of envy. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment.”

“Oh, then don’t speak of it; don’t speak of it,” she cries impulsively; “take a little time; consider; don’t commit yourself.”

“Thank you!” he said, in a tone of deep mortification.

Emma cannot bear to give him pain. He is wishing, perhaps, to consult her. She may help him; give just praise to Harriet, represent to him his independence.

Emma refuses to go in, and as they take another turn, says hurriedly, “I stopped you ungraciously just now, Mr. Knightley; but if you have any wish to speak to me openly, as a friend, you may command me. I will hear whatever you like, I will tell you exactly what I think.”

“As a friend,” repeats Mr. Knightley. No, he has no wish. But why should he hesitate when he has gone too far for concealment? He accepts her offer as a friend. Will she tell him if he has any chance of ever succeeding? He stops to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowers her.

“My dearest Emma, for dearest you will always be to me, whatever the event of this hour’s conversation, tell me at once; say ‘no’ if it is to be said.”

She can really say nothing.

“‘You are silent,’ he cries, with great animation, ‘absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.’

“Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream was perhaps the most prominent feeling.

“‘I cannot make speeches, Emma,’ he soon resumed, and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am; you hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it. Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows I have been a very indifferent lover. But you understand me. Yes, you see--you understand my feelings, and will return them if you can. At present I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.’”

Emma’s mind is busy. Harriet’s hopes have been groundless--a delusion as complete as any of her own--and Emma rejoices that Harriet’s secret has not escaped her. “It was all the service she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the more worthy of the two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both, Emma had it not.” “She spoke then on being entreated. What did she say? Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does. She said enough to show there need not be despair, and to invite him to say more himself.”

“Mr. Knightley had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had come to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement with no selfish view, the rest had been the work of a moment.

“_Her_ change was equal. This one half-hour had given to each the same precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust. On his side there had been a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation, of Frank Churchill. He had been in love with Emma and jealous of Frank Churchill from about the same period, one sentiment having probably enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill that had taken him from the country. The Box Hill party had decided him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again such permitted, encouraged attentions. He had gone to learn to be indifferent, but he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form in it. Isabella was too much like Emma, differing only in those striking inferiorities which always brought the other in brilliancy before him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer. He had stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day, till this very morning’s post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax. Then, with the gladness which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no longer. He had ridden home through the rain, and had walked up directly after dinner to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.

“He had found her agitated and low. Frank Churchill was a villain. He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s character was not desperate. She was his own Emma, by hand and word, when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.” The concluding paragraph, in its mingled vivacity and satire, is peculiarly Jane Austen’s.

Emma had left the house for a little respite from suffering. She returns to it in an exquisite flutter of happiness. The reflections of a sleepless night tranquillise Emma’s feelings. Her gravest considerations are her father and Harriet, since Emma’s happiness by no means absolves her, in her own opinion, in that of her author, or in reality, from caring for others. She hardly knows yet what Mr. Knightley will ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produces the most solemn resolution of never quitting her father. She even weeps at the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lives it must be only an engagement, which, she flatters herself, might become an additional comfort to him.

With regard to poor Harriet, Emma must still experience much bitter self-reproach and many sorrowful regrets. The best that Emma can devise for her friend, while still avoiding a meeting, and communicating what she has to tell by letter, is to procure for Harriet an invitation to visit Isabella. A few weeks spent in London will furnish some amusement.

Emma’s letter to Harriet, written the first thing before breakfast, is so hard a task that Mr. Knightley, in walking over to breakfast, does not come too soon. He has not left her long when a thick packet from Mrs. Weston encloses Frank Churchill’s promised explanation.

It is a good letter--appealing not unsuccessfully to the candour and indulgence of his reader. The writer dwells eloquently on all the difficulties which beset his devoted attachment to Miss Fairfax, so that if he had not persuaded her to stoop to a secret engagement, he must have gone mad. He confesses ingenuously what had really been the motive of his first visit to Highbury.

He admits that his attentions to Miss Woodhouse were partly for the purpose of assisting in the concealment of his real object. But he insists that, if he had not been convinced of her indifference, he would not have acted as he did. They seemed to understand each other. When he called to take leave of her, he had been on the verge of confessing the truth. He believes she had some suspicion of it. He remembers her telling him at the ball that he ought to be grateful to Mrs. Elton. His heart was in Highbury, and his business was to get his body there as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.

Of the piano so much talked of, he need not say that it was ordered entirely without the knowledge of Miss Fairfax, who would never have allowed him to send it had any choice been given her. Afterwards he had behaved shamefully. Does Mrs. Weston remember the morning at Donwell? He was late. He met Miss Fairfax walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her; but she would not suffer it. He had thought her over-cautious, even cold. He now saw she was perfectly right. “While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a proposal which might have made every previous precaution useless? Had we been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must have been suspected. I was mad enough, however, to resent--I doubted her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill, when, provoked by such conduct on my side--such shameful, insolent neglect of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been impossible for any woman of sense to endure--she spoke her resentment in a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.”

Even then he was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time; but he went away, determined that she should make the first advances.

In the meantime she closed with the offer of a situation as governess; and wrote to him that, as she felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each, she dissolved it.

The letter reached him on the very morning of his aunt’s death. He answered it within the hour, but in the confusion which followed, his answer, instead of being sent off with the many letters despatched that day, was locked up in his writing-desk, while he trusted that he had said enough, though in but a few lines, to satisfy her. He was surprised at getting no answer till he received a parcel--his own letters returned, with a note stating her surprise at not having heard from him in reply to her last letter, and begging him to forward her letters to Mrs. Smallridge’s, near Bristol.

He knew the name, the place, and instantly saw what she had been about. What was to be done? One thing only. He must speak to his uncle; without his sanction Frank could not hope to be listened to again. And Mr. Churchill, softened by the late event, was earlier reconciled than Frank could have ventured to expect.

Is Mrs. Weston disposed to pity Frank for having to plead his cause with so much at stake? She must not pity him till he reached Highbury, and saw how ill he had made _her_. He knew when to find her alone. A great deal of very reasonable--very just--displeasure he had to persuade away. But it was done; they were reconciled--dearer, much dearer, than ever.

The letter makes its way to Emma’s heart. Frank had been wrong, but he has suffered, and is very sorry; and he is so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and Emma is so happy herself, that there is no being severe. Could he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands as heartily as ever.

Emma knows Mrs. Weston will like Mr. Knightley to see the letter; and she herself is anxious that he should read it when he comes again. He wishes to take it home with him; but when he has to look over it then and there, he goes through it, supplying a running commentary of caustic, humorous remarks: “Playing a dangerous game,” he observes at one place; and when he comes to the piano, exclaims, “Ah! that was the act of a very young man--too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure.” “I perfectly agree with you, sir,” Mr. Knightley echoes, “you did behave very shamefully.” “What a letter the man writes!” protests the lover, impatient on his own account.

“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him,” interposes Emma.

“Well, there is feeling here,” admits Knightley. “He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill. He has had great faults--faults of inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves; but still, as he is, beyond doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very ready to believe his character will be improved, and acquire from hers the steadiness and delicacy of principle it wants.”

But Mr. Knightley has something else to talk of. “And it is in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with” that he introduces his subject, “how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the happiness of her father.”

Emma’s answer is ready. She can never quit her father.

Mr. Knightley, unselfish in everything, feels this as strongly as herself. But his mind has been at work all the morning to overcome the obstacle. He had first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to Donwell; but Mr. Knightley’s knowledge of his future father-in-law’s habits soon convinced him that this step was impossible. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield! it ought not to be attempted. But Mr. Knightley’s next plan “he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any respect objectionable: it was, that he should be received at Hartfield! that so long as her father’s happiness--in other words, his life--required Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.”

The last solution of the difficulty has never occurred to Emma. “She was sensible of all the affection it evinced. She felt that in quitting Donwell he must be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there would be much--very much--to be borne with.[64] She promised to think of it, and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced that no reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration. He had been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his thoughts to himself.”

“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you ask mine.”

“She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised, moreover, to think of it with the intention of finding it a very good scheme.

“It is remarkable that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded.”

Emma would be too happy but for poor Harriet. “In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is, supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr. Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure; not like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly considerate for everybody, would never deserve to be less worshipped than now; and it really was too much to hope, even of Harriet, that she could be in love with more than three men in one year.”

Mrs. Weston’s friends are made happy by the birth of a daughter to her. Emma and Mr. Knightley compare notes on Miss Weston’s education. He declares he is losing his bitterness against spoiled children; they are disagreeable in infancy, but correct themselves as they grow older.

Emma reminds him she had the advantage of his endeavours to qualify the indulgence of other people. It would be the greatest humanity if he would do as much for poor little Anna Weston, except fall in love with her when she is thirteen.

“How often when you were a girl,” he tells her, “have you said to me with one of your saucy looks, ‘Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so and so; papa says I may,’ or ‘I have Miss Taylor’s leave;’ something which you knew I did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving two bad feelings instead of one.”

“‘What an amiable creature I was! No wonder you should hold my speeches in such affectionate remembrance.’

“‘Mr. Knightley, you always called me. Mr. Knightley, and from habit it has not so very formal a sound. And yet it is formal. I want you to call me something else, but I do not know what.’

“‘I remember once calling you George in one of my amiable fits, about ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as you made no objection, I never did it again.’

“‘And cannot you call me George now?’

“‘Impossible! I never can call you anything but Mr. Knightley. I will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton by calling you Mr. K. But I will promise,’ she added presently, laughing and blushing, ‘I will promise to call you once by your Christian name. I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where: in the building in which N. takes M. for better, for worse.’”

Harriet had answered Emma’s letter, breaking to her the true state of affairs, much as might have been supposed, without reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style, which increased the desirableness of their being separate. It might be only her own consciousness, but it seemed as if an angel only could have been quite without resentment under such a stroke.

But an invitation from Isabella is procured, Harriet finds the excuse of wishing to see a dentist, and Emma has the comfort of getting Harriet conveyed in state, in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage, to Brunswick Square, and established there for a fortnight.