Emma (12 page)

“Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children. We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she will think the handsomest, Henry or John?”

“Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.”

“I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.”

“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second, is named after his father. Some people are surprised, I believe, that the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They are all remarkably clever, and they have so many pretty ways. They will come and stand by my chair, and say, ‘Grandpapa, can you give me a bit of string?’ and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with them very often.”

“He appears rough to you,” said Emma, “because you are so very gentle yourself, but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy, and if they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then, but he is an affectionate father—certainly Mr John Knightley is an affectionate father. The children are all fond of him.”

“Then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a very frightful way!”

“But they like it, papa, there is nothing they like so much. It is such enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.”

“Well, I cannot understand it.”

“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate in preparation for the regular four o’clock dinner, the hero of this inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away, but Emma could receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in his the consciousness of having made a push—of having thrown a die, and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible reason, however, was to ask whether Mr Woodhouse’s party could be made up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, everything else must give way, but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his dining with him—had made such a point of it, that he had promised him conditionally to come.

Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend on their account, her father was sure of his rubber. He re-urged—she re-declined, and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the paper from the table, she returned it.

“Oh! Here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us, thank you for the sight of it. We admired it so much that I have ventured to write it into Miss Smith’s collection. Your friend will not take it amiss, I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight lines.”

Mr Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather doubtingly—rather confused, said something about “honour”—glanced at Emma and at Harriet, then seeing the book open on the table, took it up and examined it very attentively.

With the view of passing off an awkward moment, Emma smilingly said, “You must make my apologies to your friend, but so good a charade must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman’s approbation while he writes with such gallantry.”

“I have no hesitation in saying,” replied Mr Elton, though hesitating a good deal while he spoke, “I have no hesitation in saying—at least if my friend feels at all as
I
do—I have not the smallest doubt that, could he see his little effusion honoured as
I
see it”—looking at the book again, and replacing it on the table—“he would consider it as the proudest moment of his life.”

After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think it too soon, for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and the sublime of pleasure to Harriet’s share.

Chapter Ten

Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise, and on the morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who lived a little way out of Highbury.

Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of the place, and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, then about a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had no advantage of situation, but had been very much smartened up by the present proprietor, and such as it was, there could be no possibility of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing eyes.

Emma’s remark was, “There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these days.”

Harriet’s was, “Oh, what a sweet house! How very beautiful! There are the yellow curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”

“I do not often walk this way
now
,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but
then
there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part of Highbury.”

Harriet, she found, had never in her life been within side the Vicarage, and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that considering exteriors and probabilities, Emma could only class it as a proof of love, with Mr Elton’s seeing ready wit in her.

“I wish we could contrive it,” said she, “but I cannot think of any tolerable pretence for going in, no servant that I want to enquire about of his housekeeper—no message from my father.”

She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some minutes, Harriet thus began again. “I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married! So charming as you are!”

Emma laughed, and replied, “My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry, I must find other people charming—one other person at least. And I am not only not going to be married at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.” Emma ignored the image of Mr Knightley that popped smartly to mind. He cared nothing of her charm, but rather believed it misapplied, she thought disagreeably.

“Ah! So you say, but I cannot believe it.”

“I must see somebody very superior to anyone I have seen yet to be tempted. Mr Elton, you know”—recollecting herself—“is out of the question, and I do
not
wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.”

“Dear me! It is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”

“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! But I never have been in love, it is not my way, or my nature, and I do not think I ever shall. And without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want, employment I do not want, consequence I do not want, I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield, and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important, so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”

“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”

“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet, and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! So silly—so satisfied—so smiling—so prosing—so undistinguishing and unfastidious—and so apt to tell everything relative to everybody about me, I would marry tomorrow. But between
us
, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unmarried.”

“But still, you will be an old maid! And that’s so dreadful!”

“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid, and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! The proper sport of boys and girls. But a single woman of good fortune is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the candour and common sense of the world as appears at first, for a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small and generally very inferior society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates, she is only too good-natured and too silly to suit me, but in general she is very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind, I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it, and nobody is afraid of her, that is a great charm.”

“Dear me! But what shall you do? How shall you employ yourself when you grow old?”

“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources, and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman’s usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they are now, or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more—if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in
not
marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every fear, and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces! I shall often have a niece with me.”

“Do you know Miss Bates’ niece? That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred times—but are you acquainted?”

“Oh! Yes, we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to Highbury. By the by,
that
is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid—at least, that I should ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over, her compliments to all friends go round and round again, and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well, but she tires me to death.”

They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were superseded. Emma was very compassionate, and the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways, could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little, entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as goodwill. In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit, and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,

“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make everything else appear! I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day, and yet who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?”

“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! One can think of nothing else.”

“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again. “I do not think it will”—stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.

“Oh dear, no,” said her companion.

They walked on. The lane made a slight bend, and when that bend was passed, Mr Elton was immediately in sight, and so near as to give Emma time only to say farther, “Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts. Well”—smiling—“I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”

Harriet could just answer, “Oh dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit he would now defer, but they had a very interesting parley about what could be done and should be done. Mr Elton then turned back to accompany them.

To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,
thought Emma,
to meet in a charitable scheme, this will bring a great increase of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.

Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that in short, they would both be soon after her.