Emma (9 page)

“A very serious sort, I assure you.” Still smiling.

“Very serious! I can think of but one thing—Who is in love with her? Who makes you their confidant?”

Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr Elton’s having dropped a hint. Mr Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr Elton looked up to him.

“I have reason to think,” he replied, “that Harriet Smith will soon have an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter, Robert Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey Mill, this summer, seems to have done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her.”

“He is very obliging,” said Emma, “but is he sure that Harriet means to marry him?”

“Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and I believe considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early, whether I thought her too young, in short, whether I approved his choice altogether, having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered—especially since
your
making so much of her—as in a line of society above him.

“I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear better sense from anyone than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the purpose, open, straightforward and very well judging. He told me everything, his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me that he could afford it, and that being the case, I was convinced he could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he would have thought highly of me then, and I dare say left the house thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had.

“This happened the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs Goddard’s today, and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking him at all a tiresome wretch.”

“Pray, Mr Knightley,” said Emma, who had been smiling to herself through a great part of this speech with superiority at last in this recent meeting of wills, “how do you know that Mr Martin did not speak yesterday?”

“Certainly,” replied he, surprised, “I do not absolutely know it, but it may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?”

“Come,” said she, “I will tell you something, in return for what you have told me. He did speak yesterday—that is, he wrote, and was refused.”

This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed, and Mr Knightley actually looked red with surprise and displeasure as he stood up in tall indignation and said, “Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the foolish girl about? What have you done?”

“Oh! To be sure,” cried Emma, “it is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her—as evidenced by your kiss. Did you think I’d swoon and bat pretty eyes at you too, Mr Knightley? That I’d swoon with your regard and play passionately with you? No! And just as I have more sense than to have my head turned by a kiss from your lips, so does Harriet have more self-respect than to be charmed by Mr Martin’s written proposal!”

“Nonsense! A man does not imagine any such thing. A kiss is but a kiss. I imagine you too stubborn by half to bend to my will so readily. But what is the meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? Madness, if it is so, but I hope you are mistaken.”

“I saw her answer! Nothing could be clearer.”

“You saw her answer! You wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.”

“And if I did—which, however, I am far from allowing—I should not feel that I had done wrong. Mr Martin is a very respectable young man, but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal, and am rather surprised indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever got over.”

“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr Knightley loudly and warmly, and with calmer asperity added a few moments afterwards, “No, he is not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any connection higher than Robert Martin?

“She is the natural daughter of nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and too simple to have acquired anything herself. At her age she can have no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good-tempered, and that is all.

“My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, as being beneath his deserts and a bad connection for him. I felt that, as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better, and that as to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition which in good hands like his might be easily led aright and turn out very well. The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side, and had not the smallest doubt—nor have I now—that there would be a general cry-out upon her extreme good luck. Even
your
satisfaction I made sure of. It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend’s leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember saying to myself, ‘Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will think this a good match’.”

“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any such thing. What! Think a farmer—and with all his sense and all his merit Mr Martin is nothing more—a good match for my intimate friend! Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very differently by others as well as myself. Mr Martin may be the richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society. The sphere in which she moves is much above his. It would be a degradation.”

“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable, intelligent gentleman farmer!”

“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with whom she is brought up. There can scarcely be a doubt that her father is a gentleman—and a gentleman of fortune. Her allowance is very liberal. Nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or comfort. That she is a gentleman’s daughter is indubitable to me. That she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I apprehend, will deny. She is superior to Mr Robert Martin.”

“Whoever might be her parents,” said Mr Knightley, “whoever may have had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs Goddard’s hands to shift as she can, to move, in short, in Mrs Goddard’s line, to have Mrs Goddard’s acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought this good enough for her, and it
was
good enough. She desired nothing better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it, he had encouragement.”

It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this assertion. She chose rather to take up her own line of the subject again.

“You are a very warm friend to Mr Martin, but as I said before, are unjust to Harriet. Harriet’s claims to marry well are not so contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point however, and supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured, let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not trivial recommendations to the world in general. For she is in fact a beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninety-nine people out of an hundred, and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the subject of beauty than they are generally supposed—till they do fall in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces—a girl with such loveliness as Harriet has a certainty of being admired and sought after, of having the power of choosing from among many, consequently a claim to be nice. Her good nature too is not so very slight a claim, comprehending as it does real, thorough sweetness of temper and manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims a woman could possess.”

“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply it as you do.”

“To be sure!” cried she playfully. “I know
that
is the feeling of you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in—what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgement. Oh! Harriet may pick and choose. Were you yourself ever to marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No—pray let her have time to look about her.”

“I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,” said Mr Knightley presently, “though I have kept my thoughts to myself, but I now perceive that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her. Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief. Nothing so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity—and most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable and happy forever, but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large fortune, she may be a parlour-boarder at Mrs Goddard’s all the rest of her life—or, at least—for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry somebody or other—till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the old writing-master’s son.”

“We think so very differently on this point, Mr Knightley, that there can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more angry. But as to my
letting
her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible. She has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him, whatever it may be, and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to say that I might not influence her a little, but I assure you there was very little for me or for anybody to do. His appearance is so much against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen anybody superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her friends, and he took pains to please her, and altogether, having seen nobody better—that must have been his great assistant—she might not, while she was at Abbey Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are, and nothing but a gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.”

“Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!” cried Mr Knightley replacing his tea to the table before he shook out its contents. “Robert Martin’s manners have sense, sincerity, and good humour to recommend them, and his mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could understand.”

Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She did not repent what she had done—she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be—but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgement in general which made her dislike having it so loudly against her, and to have him sitting just opposite to her in angry state, after so enrapturing a kiss, was very disagreeable. Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt on Emma’s side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words.

“Robert Martin has no great loss—if he can but think so, and I hope it will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known to yourself, but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have, and as a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it will be all labour in vain.”