Emma (57 page)

“I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,” replied Emma, smiling, “but you do not mean to deny that there was a time—and not very distant either—when you gave me reason to understand that you did care about him?”

“Him! Never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?” Turning away distressed.

“Harriet!” cried Emma, after a moment’s pause. “What do you mean? Good Heaven! what do you mean? Mistake you! Am I to suppose then—?”

She could not speak another word. Her voice was lost, and she sat down, waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer.

Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from her, did not immediately say anything, and when she did speak, it was in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma’s.

“I should not have thought it possible,” she began, “that you could have misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him—but considering how infinitely superior he is to everybody else, I should not have thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person. Mr Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of Mr Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should have been so mistaken is amazing! I am sure, but for believing that you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more wonderful things had happened, that there had been matches of greater disparity—those were your very words—I should not have dared to give way to—I should not have thought it possible— But if
you
, who had been always acquainted with him—”

“Harriet!” cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely. “Let us understand each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you speaking of—Mr Knightley?”

“To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of anybody else—and so I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as possible.”

“Not quite,” returned Emma, with forced calmness, “for all that you then said appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost assert that you had
named
Mr Frank Churchill. I am sure the service Mr Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the gypsies, was spoken of.”

“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget!”

“My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment, that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely natural, and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had been in seeing him come forward to your rescue. The impression of it is strong on my memory.”

“Oh, dear,” cried Harriet, “now I recollect what you mean, but I was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the gypsies—it was not Mr Frank Churchill that I meant. No!”—with some elevation—“I was thinking of a much more precious circumstance—of Mr Knightley’s coming and asking me to dance when Mr Elton would not stand up with me, and when there was no other partner in the room. That was the kind action, that was the noble benevolence and generosity, that was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every other being upon earth.”

“Good God!” cried Emma. “This has been a most unfortunate—most deplorable mistake! What is to be done?” Her hands shook. Was she to be pitted against Harriet? Did she wish to be? She had come to care for Mr Knightley, but in light of all the wrongs she had done to Harriet, and her own assertion never to marry, could she begrudge her friend this?

“You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the other had been the person, and now—it
is
possible—”

She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak.

“I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse,” she resumed, “that you should feel a great difference between the two, as to me or as to anybody. You must think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposing—that if—strange as it may appear— But you know they were your own words, that
more
wonderful things had happened, matches of
greater
disparity had taken place than between Mr Frank Churchill and me, and therefore, it seems as if such a thing even as this, may have occurred before—and if I should be so fortunate, beyond expression, as to—if Mr Knightley should really—if
he
does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But you are too good for that, I am sure.”

Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at her in consternation, and hastily said, “Have you any idea of Mr Knightley’s returning your affection?” And though she had not intended such difficulty in the asking of the question, the words freed themselves from her with great difficulty.

“Yes,” replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully. “I must say that I have.”

Emma’s eyes were instantly withdrawn, and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched—she admitted—she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse that Harriet should be in love with Mr Knightley than with Frank Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet’s having some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an arrow, that Mr Knightley must marry no one but herself!

Each moment she had stolen in his presence had been meant as an illustration of life within the confines of a marriage. She had convinced herself that was all and she needed no more than an understanding of the intimacies that made a friendship different from a marriage. He had instructed. She had learned while there remained so much more to discover! She could own to recognising that each act with Mr Knightley produced more intense feelings than the one before—more personal investment in giving and receiving—and she could not discount that one exchange built upon the other, completing a larger upon larger picture of blissful perfection. As an act—should she only view it as such—the experience grew all-encompassing, winging her heart forward to the next stolen encounter while still within the scope of the previous. So wondrous was the physicality of being attended by Mr Knightley, body and soul.

Further, for she could not mere view her moments with him as distinctly physical, she knew she had given deeper of herself than her body. Yes, her soul, but also her heart. Had she known the consequence, she could not be certain she would have so freely entered the arrangement with him. She did not wish—had not wished until this moment—to tie herself to one man, under his rule and his home. Yet the heart of forfeiting him to another wrenched her traitorous organ from her chest cruelly.

She no longer believed her own assertions regarding solitude. It was one consideration when she believed Mr Knightley would always be hers, only answer to her, only visit with her and her father. It shocked her to think of him with Harriet—with anyone other than herself! His breath upon another’s skin. His body moving within another’s body. His elegant, manly scowl directed at another.

Her stomach lurched at the revelation. She could not tolerate it and yet Harriet seemed so sure of Mr Knightley’s affections.

Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the world if it would return Mr Knightley to her own side forever.

Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all these demerits—some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense of justice by Harriet—there would be no need of
compassion
to the girl who believed herself loved by Mr Knightley, but justice required that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now—gave Emma the resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent kindness, though she wished to run from the room in search of peace for her racing thoughts.

For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost extent of Harriet’s hopes should be enquired into, and Harriet had done nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily formed and maintained—or to deserve to be slighted by the person whose counsels had never led her right. Rousing from reflection, therefore, and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and in a more inviting accent, renewed the conversation—for as to the subject which had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was quite sunk and lost. Neither of them thought but of Mr Knightley and themselves.

Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge and such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation to give the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight. Emma’s tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than Harriet’s, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady, but her mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing emotions, must create—such a loss to herself.

She listened with much inward suffering, but with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail. Methodical, or well arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be, but it contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her spirit—especially with the corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of Mr Knightley’s most improved opinion of Harriet.

Emma appeared to have discarded Mr Knightley before knowing she should hold him fast to her breast with every yearning she possessed. This made her ache greater for having lost that which she did not ever own, nor supposed she should wish to have, until the moment had passed her by in favour of another. The prospect of remaining unmarried now tasted like bile upon her tongue. It was a cruel twist of fate that she should despise marriage only months ago and desire it with all her being now, so long as that marriage was to Mr Knightley.

Ah, Harriet! Lucky Harriet that she could claim it where Emma could not. Harriet who seemed more wise than Emma and more astute to his intentions, for it seemed Harriet had a vast catalogue of instances to draw upon in recounting proof of his affections. Emma listened, pained but attentive to understand what her friend had so easily discovered, to find the flaw in herself through the development of this other relationship.

Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since those two decisive dances. Emma knew that he had, on that occasion, found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at least from the time of Miss Woodhouse’s encouraging her to think of him, Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner towards her, a manner of kindness and sweetness! Latterly she had been more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together, he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very delightfully! He seemed to want to be acquainted with her.

With sinking heart, Emma knew it to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to almost the same extent. Harriet repeated expressions of approbation and praise from him—and Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous, feelings. She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet, he had dwelt on them to her more than once.

Much that lived in Harriet’s memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected, by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour’s relation, and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed undiscerned by her who now heard them, but the two latest occurrences to be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without some degree of witness from Emma herself.

The first was his walking with her apart from the others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains—as she was convinced—to draw her from the rest to himself—and at first, he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done before, in a very particular way indeed! Harriet could not recall it without a blush. He seemed to be almost asking her whether her affections were engaged. But as soon as she, Miss Woodhouse, appeared likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about farming.

The second was his having sat talking with her nearly half an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of his being at Hartfield—though, when he first came in, he had said that he could not stay five minutes—and his having told her, during their conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more, as Emma felt, than he had acknowledged to
her
. The superior degree of confidence towards Harriet which this one article marked gave her severe pain.

On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a little reflection, venture the following question. “Might he not? Is not it possible that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of your affections, he might be alluding to Mr Martin—he might have Mr Martin’s interest in view?” But Harriet rejected the suspicion with spirit.