Emma (60 page)

Emma understood him, and as soon as she could recover from the flutter of pleasure excited by such tender consideration, replied, “You are very kind—but you are mistaken—and I must set you right. I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was going on led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed of, and 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.”

She nearly spoke her heart, confessing her deeper affection for himself, for the want of his company, the pleasure of his hold upon her arm, the delight of feeling his pulse against her palm and her greater desire still to have it without a glove or garments between them. She longed to tell him all the thoughts in her mind—as only a friend of so many years could hear them and only a lover would accept in their intimacy—yet she no longer had the confidence of his sentiments, had they ever been truly extended towards her. More than teaching, more than lessons learned for the sake of her curiosity—had he loved her as she realised she had loved him all along? Would he receive her affections or scoff at her, gently set her in her place and speak of Harriet’s fairness, beauty and worthiness? Emma could not bear it and so she turned her gaze away from his lips where it had wandered. Only a moment had passed between her assessment of her behaviour and this, yet all of time rested within it.

Seeming insensible to her warring thoughts, Mr Knightley carried on his conversation. “Emma!” cried he, looking eagerly at her. “Are you, indeed unharmed?”—but checking himself—“No, no, I understand you—forgive me—I am pleased that you can say even so much. He is no object of regret, indeed! And it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment of more than your reason. Fortunate that your affections were not farther entangled! I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure myself as to the degree of what you felt—I could only be certain that there was a preference—and a preference which I never believed him to deserve. He is a disgrace to the name of man. And is he to be rewarded with that sweet young woman? Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable creature.”

“Mr Knightley,” said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused, “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.”

He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his clemency, but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in his opinion. She went on, however.

“I have very little to say for my own conduct. I was tempted by his attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased. An old story, probably—a common case—and no more than has happened to hundreds of my sex before, and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up as I do for Understanding.

“Many circumstances assisted the temptation. He was the son of Mr Weston—he was continually here—I always found him very pleasant—and in short, for”—with a sigh—“let me swell out the causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last—my vanity was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however—for some time, indeed—I have had no idea of their meaning anything. I thought them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side. He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been attached to him.

“And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real situation with another. It was his object to blind all about him, and no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself—except that I was
not
blinded—that it was my good fortune—that, in short, I was somehow or other safe from him.”

She had hoped for an answer here—for a few words to say that her conduct was at least intelligible, but he was silent, and as far as she could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone, he said, “I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill. I can suppose, however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has been but trifling. And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he may yet turn out well. With such a woman he has a chance. I have no motive for wishing him ill—and for her sake, whose happiness will be involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him well.”

“I have no doubt of their being happy together,” said Emma, “I believe them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached.”

“He is a most fortunate man!” returned Mr Knightley, with energy. “So early in life—at three-and-twenty—a period when, if a man chooses a wife, he generally chooses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation, has before him! Assured of the love of such a woman—the disinterested love, for Jane Fairfax’s character vouches for her disinterestedness, everything in his favour, equality of situation—I mean, as far as regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important, equality in every point but one—and that one, since the purity of her heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.

“A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from, and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of
her
regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals. Frank Churchill is, indeed, the favourite of fortune. Everything turns out for his good. 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 had used everybody ill—and they are all delighted to forgive him. He is a fortunate man indeed!”

“You speak as if you envied him.”

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

Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if possible. She made her plan. She would speak of something totally different—the children in Brunswick Square, and she only waited for breath to begin, when Mr Knightley startled her, by saying, “You will not ask me what is the point of envy. You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity. You are wise—but
I
cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment.”

“Oh, then, don’t speak it, don’t speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself.” Tears welled in her eyes as his words nearly spoken would condemn her fate. She was not ready!

“Thank you,” said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not another syllable followed.

Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in her—perhaps to consult her. Cost her what it would, she would listen. She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it, she might give just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence, relieve him from that state of indecision which must be more intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his. They had reached the house.

“You are going in, I suppose?” said he.

Guilt assailed her furthered by the view of the garden in the distance. The very garden where he’d first instructed her. Already her body readied for more of the same in opposition to her broken feelings. What friend was she to deny him love? What lover was she to deny him a life he would choose? And she could not, for her own sake, refuse him. To see him so unhappy made undid her tongue, to prolong their conversation and make known to him her genuine regard for his happiness—whomever he would have.

“No,” replied Emma—quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which he still spoke. “I should like to take another turn. Mr Perry is not gone.” And after proceeding a few steps, her eye upon the garden and resolve clutching her chest, she added, “I stopped you ungraciously, just now, Mr Knightley, and I am afraid, gave you pain. But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of anything that you may have in contemplation—as a friend, indeed, you may command me. I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think.”

“As a friend!” repeated Mr Knightley. “Emma, that I fear is a word— No, I have no wish— Stay, yes, why should I hesitate? I have gone too far already for concealment. Emma, I accept your offer—Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend. Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?”

He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowered her. He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing it firmly as he crowded closer to her, then held it to his chest.

“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma—tell me at once. Say ‘No’, if it is to be said.” His other hand he lifted to her cheek, stroking the blush he discovered there with the gentleness of his fingertips.

She could really say nothing, her words stripped from her as tears once again gathered in her eyes.

”You are silent,” he cried, with great animation, “absolutely silent! At present I ask no more.” Mr Knightley lowered his hand from her cheek as his glance darted about her face.

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.”

While he spoke, Emma’s mind was most busy, and with all the wonderful velocity of thought, had been able—and yet without losing a word—to catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole, to see that Harriet’s hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a delusion as any of her own—that Harriet was nothing, that she was everything herself, that what she had been saying relative to Harriet had been all taken as the language of her own feelings, and that her agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all received as discouragement from herself.

And not only was there time for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness, there was time also to rejoice that Harriet’s secret had not escaped her, and to resolve that it need not, and should not. 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 most worthy of the two—or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at once and forever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and with contrition, but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her forever, but her judgement was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal and degrading.

Her way was clear, though not quite smooth. She spoke then, on being so 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. He
had
despaired at one period, he had received such an injunction to caution and silence, as for the time crushed every hope, she had begun by refusing to hear him. The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden, her proposal of taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary! She felt its inconsistency, but Mr Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it, and seek no farther explanation.

“Yes,” she said again in light of his brilliant smile. “Yes and yes!”

Mr Knightley turned, her hand still captured in his, and ran with her through the garden, ran to the gazebo which had first captured the essence of her affection for him as pronounced through sexual exploration. She laughed, trailing behind as he took the step up, knowing they were well hidden from view, knowing his intentions and equally elated to accept them.

Emma expected the rough boards of the gazebo railing to chafe her flesh, she did not expect gentleness or the careful plucking of pins from her hair until her golden locks tumbled free about her back.

“Dear Lord, but you are more beautiful standing before me as my own, than as Emma Woodhouse, my friend.”

Emma laughed. “But I am the same!”

“No. Before you were the daughter of my neighbour, the sister of my brother’s wife and the daring lady who challenged me at every turn.”

“And now?” she asked, her breath captured in her throat.

“My goddess, my nymph, my beloved. My precious, precious Emma who is mine alone for all time.”

If she were one to swoon, the floor would have already claimed her upon his words, but made of sterner stuff, she bore it all and found herself smiling insipidly as he caressed her cheeks, the side of her neck, her arms.