Emma (56 page)

“Impropriety! Oh! Mrs Weston—it is too calm a censure. Much, much beyond impropriety! It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be! Not at all like the character of our esteemed Mr Knightley who seemed to know better all along. How I wish I had listened to him! How right he was! None of that upright integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of his life.”

“Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part, for though he has been wrong in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having many, very many, good qualities, and—”

“Good God!” cried Emma, not attending to her. “Mrs Smallridge, too! Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself—to suffer her even to think of such a measure!”

“He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him—or at least not communicated in a way to carry conviction. Till yesterday, I know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do not know how, but by some letter or message—and it was the discovery of what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on his kindness, and in short, put an end to the miserable state of concealment that had been carrying on so long.”

Emma began to listen better, though she suspected the death of Mrs Churchill had more to do with his coming forward than the quest for decency.

“I am to hear from him soon,” continued Mrs Weston. “He told me at parting, that he should soon write, and he spoke in a manner which seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to be understood. Don’t let us be severe, don’t let us be in a hurry to condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him, and now that I am satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secrecy and concealment.”

“
His
sufferings,” replied Emma dryly, “do not appear to have done him much harm. Well, and how did Mr Churchill take it?”

“Most favourably for his nephew—gave his consent with scarcely a difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family! While poor Mrs Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a hope, a chance, a possibility, but scarcely are her remains at rest in the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue influence does not survive the grave! He gave his consent with very little persuasion.”

Ah!
thought Emma.
He would have done as much for Harriet.

“This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bateses’, I fancy, some time—then came on hither, but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle, to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you, he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour. He was very much agitated—very much, indeed—to a degree that made him appear quite a different creature from anything I had ever seen him before. In addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of—and there was every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal.”

“And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such perfect secrecy? The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of the engagement?”

Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush.

“None, not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in the world but their two selves.”

“Well,” said Emma, “I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of hypocrisy and deceit, espionage and treachery? To come among us with professions of openness and simplicity, and such a league in secret to judge us all! Here have we been, the whole winter and spring, completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgement on sentiments and words that were never meant for both to hear. They must take the consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not perfectly agreeable!”

“I am quite easy on that head,” replied Mrs Weston. “I am very sure that I never said anything of either to the other, which both might not have heard.”

“You are in luck. Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady.”

“True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her, and as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe.”

At this moment Mr Weston appeared at a little distance from the window, evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him in, and while he was coming round, added, “Now, dearest Emma, let me entreat you to say and look everything that may set his heart at ease, and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of it—and indeed, almost everything may be fairly said in her favour. It is not a connection to gratify, but if Mr Churchill does not feel that, why should we? And it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such steadiness of character and good judgement as I have always given her credit for—and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may be said in her situation for even that error!”

“Much, indeed!” cried Emma feelingly. “If a woman can ever be excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane Fairfax’s. Of such, one may almost say, that ‘the world is not theirs, nor the world’s law’.”

She met Mr Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance, exclaiming,

“A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation. I congratulate you, Mr Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter.”

A glance or two between him and his wife convinced him that all was as right as this speech proclaimed, and its happy effect on his spirits was immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness, he shook her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in a manner to prove that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections, and by the time they had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank could possibly have done.

Chapter Eleven

“Harriet, poor Harriet!”

Those were the words, in them lay the tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very ill by herself—very ill in many ways, but it was not so much
his
behaviour as her
own
, which made her so angry with him. It was the scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet’s account that gave the deepest hue to his offence. Poor Harriet! To be a second time the dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr Knightley had spoken prophetically, when he once said, “Emma, you have been no friend to Harriet Smith.” She was afraid she had done her nothing but disservice.

It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of the mischief, with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise never have entered Harriet’s imagination, for Harriet had acknowledged her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever given her a hint on the subject, but she felt completely guilty of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought to have prevented them. She felt that she had been risking her friend’s happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed her to tell Harriet that she must not allow herself to think of him, and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring for her. “But, with common sense,” she added, “I am afraid I have had little to do.”

She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful. As for Jane Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough. She need no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure. Her days of insignificance and evil were over. She would soon be well and happy and prosperous.

Emma could now imagine why her own attentions had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No doubt it had been from jealousy. In Jane’s eyes she had been a rival, and well might anything she could offer of assistance or regard be repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack, and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She understood it all, and as far as her mind could disengage itself from the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her desert.

But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little sympathy to be spared for anybody else. Emma was sadly fearful that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first. Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought, and judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet’s mind, producing reserve and self-command, it would. She must communicate the painful truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secrecy had been among Mr Weston’s parting words. For the present, the whole affair was to be completely a secret. Mr Churchill had made a point of it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost, and everybody admitted it to be no more than due decorum. Emma had promised, but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.

In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost ridiculous that she should have the very same distressing and delicate office to perform by Harriet which Mrs Weston had just gone through by herself. And more that she had it to do a second time as she had with Mr Elton, although this time the object of affection was not herself and therefore partially easier to disclose—except that Emma had mistaken a second time in regard to Harriet and that was not an easy disclosure—to fail not once, but twice in the pursuit of her friend’s happiness. Emma did not normally fail when she set her mind in motion, yet here she had failed and here she would have to confess her failure.

The intelligence which had been so anxiously announced to her she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quickly on hearing Harriet’s footstep and voice—so, she supposed, had poor Mrs Weston felt when
she
was approaching Randalls. Could the event of the disclosure bear an equal resemblance! But of that, unfortunately, there could be no chance.

“Well, Miss Woodhouse!” cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room. “Is not this the oddest news that ever was?”

“What news do you mean?” replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.

“About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear anything so strange? Oh, you need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr Weston has told me himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret, and therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to anybody but you, but he said you knew it.”

“What did Mr Weston tell you?” said Emma, still perplexed. Harriet did not
seem
distressed and so Emma regarded her with more care.

“Oh, he told me all about it, that Jane Fairfax and Mr Frank Churchill are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one another this long while. How very odd!”

It was indeed so odd—Harriet’s behaviour was so extremely odd—that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared absolutely changed. She seemed to propose showing no agitation, or disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery—utterly at odds with her reception of the news regarding Mr Elton. Emma looked at her, quite unable to speak.

“Had you any idea,” cried Harriet, “of his being in love with her? You, perhaps, might. You”— blushing as she spoke—“who can see into everybody’s heart, but nobody else—”

“Upon my word,” said Emma, “I begin to doubt my having any such talent. Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached to another woman at the very time that I was—tacitly, if not openly—encouraging you to give way to your own feelings? I never had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr Frank Churchill’s having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”

“Me!” cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. “Why should you caution me? You do not think I care about Mr Frank Churchill.”