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Emma
by Jane Austen
VOLUME III
CHAPTER XV
This letter must make its way to Emma's feelings. She was obliged,
in spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it
all the justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to
her own name, it was irresistible; every line relating to herself
was interesting, and almost every line agreeable; and when this
charm ceased, the subject could still maintain itself, by the natural
return of her former regard for the writer, and the very strong
attraction which any picture of love must have for her at that moment.
She never stopt till she had gone through the whole; and though
it was impossible not to feel that he had been wrong, yet he had
been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had suffered, and
was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much
in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that there
was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must
have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever.
She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came
again, she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston's
wishing it to be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr.
Knightley, had seen so much to blame in his conduct.
"I shall be very glad to look it over," said he; "but
it seems long. I will take it home with me at night."
But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and
she must return it by him.
"I would rather be talking to you," he replied; "but
as it seems a matter of justice, it shall be done."
He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, "Had
I been offered the sight of one of this gentleman's letters to his
mother-in-law a few months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken
with such indifference."
He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with
a smile, observed, "Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But
it is his way. One man's style must not be the rule of another's.
We will not be severe."
"It will be natural for me," he added shortly afterwards,
"to speak my opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall
feel that I am near you. It will not be so great a loss of time:
but if you dislike it--"
"Not at all. I should wish it."
Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity.
"He trifles here," said he, "as to the temptation.
He knows he is wrong, and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He
ought not to have formed the engagement.--`His father's disposition:'--
he is unjust, however, to his father. Mr. Weston's sanguine temper
was a blessing on all his upright and honourable exertions; but
Mr. Weston earned every present comfort before he endeavoured to
gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss Fairfax was here."
"And I have not forgotten," said Emma, "how sure
you were that he might have come sooner if he would. You pass it
over very handsomely-- but you were perfectly right."
"I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet,
I think-- had you not been in the case--I should still have distrusted
him."
When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole
of it aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake
of the head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely
of love, as the subject required; concluding, however, seriously,
and, after steady reflection, thus--
"Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most
dangerous game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--
No judge of his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by
his own wishes, and regardless of little besides his own convenience.--
Fancying you to have fathomed his secret. Natural enough!-- his
own mind full of intrigue, that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery;
Finesse--how they pervert the understanding! My Emma, does not every
thing serve to prove more and more the beauty of truth and sincerity
in all our dealings with each other?"
Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's
account, which she could not give any sincere explanation of.
"You had better go on," said she.
He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, "the pianoforte!
Ah! That was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to
consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed
the pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man's
wishing to give a woman any proof of affection which he knows she
would rather dispense with; and he did know that she would have
prevented the instrument's coming if she could."
After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's
confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call
for more than a word in passing.
"I perfectly agree with you, sir,"--was then his remark.
"You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line."
And having gone through what immediately followed of the basis of
their disagreement, and his persisting to act in direct opposition
to Jane Fairfax's sense of right, he made a fuller pause to say,
"This is very bad.--He had induced her to place herself, for
his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and
it should have been his first object to prevent her from suffering
unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend with, in
carrying on the orrespondence, than he could. He should have respected
even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were all
reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she
had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear
that she should have been in such a state of punishment."
Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew
uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She
was deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was
all read, however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest
remark; and, excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn,
in the fear of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to
exist.
"There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends,
the Eltons," was his next observation.--"His feelings
are natural.-- What! actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She
felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each--
she dissolved it.--What a view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well,
he must be a most extraordinary--"
"Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers."
"I hope he does," replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming
the letter. "`Smallridge!'--What does this mean? What is all
this?"
"She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's children--
a dear friend of Mrs. Elton's--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and,
by the bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?"
"Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not
even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done.
What a letter the man writes!"
"I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him."
"Well, there is feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered
in finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being
fond of her. `Dearer, much dearer than ever.' I hope he may long
continue to feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is
a very liberal thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--`Happier
than I deserve.' Come, he knows himself there. `Miss Woodhouse calls
me the child of good fortune.'--Those were Miss Woodhouse's words,
were they?-- And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child
of good fortune! That was your name for him, was it?"
"You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I
am; but still you must, at least I hope you must, think the better
of him for it. I hope it does him some service with you."
"Yes, certainly it does. 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 a 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 improve, and
acquire from hers the steadiness and delicacy of principle that
it wants. And now, let me talk to you of something else. I have
another person's interest at present so much at heart, that I cannot
think any longer about Frank Churchill. Ever since I left you this
morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work on one subject."
The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike
English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in
love with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking
the happiness of her father. Emma's answer was ready at the first
word.
"While her dear father lived, any change of condition must
be impossible for her. She could never quit him." Part only
of this answer, however, was admitted. The impossibility of her
quitting her father, Mr. Knightley felt as strongly as herself;
but the inadmissibility of any other change, he could not agree
to. He had been thinking it over most deeply, most intently; he
had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to
Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but his knowledge
of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself long; and
now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation would
be a risk of her father's comfort, perhaps even of his life, which
must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!--No, he
felt that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen
on the sacrifice of this, 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.
Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own
passing thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected
it; but such an alternative as this had not occurred to her. 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. 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.
Think she must of the possible difference to the poor little boy;
and yet she only gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it,
and found amusement in detecting the real cause of that violent
dislike of Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else,
which at the time she had wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude
of the sister and the aunt.
This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at Hartfield--
the more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became. His evils
seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual good
to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the
periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!-- Such a partner
in all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase
of melancholy!
She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet; but every blessing
of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend,
who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family
party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in
mere charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be
a loser in every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence
as any deduction from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet
would be rather a dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl
herself, it seemed a peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing
her in such a state of unmerited punishment.
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 every body, 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.
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