Emma
“No, sir,” cried Emma, “it confesses no such thing. So far from having
long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect
to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you
should have been giving way to any feelings—Nothing could be farther
from my wishes—your attachment to my friend Harriet—your pursuit of
her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been
very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were
not your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you
judged ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you
have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss
Smith?—that you have never thought seriously of her?”
“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you.
_I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!—Miss Smith is a very good sort of
girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her
extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object
to—Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think,
quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal
alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!—No, madam, my
visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement
I received—”
“Encouragement!—I give you encouragement!—Sir, you have been entirely
mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my
friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common
acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake
ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might
have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware,
probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you
are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I
trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at
present.”
He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite
supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually
deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer,
for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If
there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate
awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the
little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage
turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves,
all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another
syllable passed.—Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good
night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under
indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to
Hartfield.
There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who had
been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage
Lane—turning a corner which he could never bear to think of—and in
strange hands—a mere common coachman—no James; and there it seemed as
if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr.
John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and
attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her
father, as to seem—if not quite ready to join him in a basin of
gruel—perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the
day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party,
except herself.—But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and
it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till
the usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet
reflection.
CHAPTER XVI
The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think
and be miserable.—It was a wretched business indeed!—Such an overthrow
of every thing she had been wishing for!—Such a development of every
thing most unwelcome!—Such a blow for Harriet!—that was the worst of
all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or
other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and she
would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken—more in
error—more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the
effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.
“If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne
any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me—but poor
Harriet!”
How she could have been so deceived!—He protested that he had never
thought seriously of Harriet—never! She looked back as well as she
could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she
supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must
have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so
misled.
The picture!—How eager he had been about the picture!—and the
charade!—and an hundred other circumstances;—how clearly they had
seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready
wit”—but then the “soft eyes”—in fact it suited neither; it was a
jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such
thick-headed nonsense?
Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to
herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere
error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others
that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the
gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but,
till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean
any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet’s friend.
To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the
subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying
that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley
had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, the
conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry
indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his
character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It was
dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many
respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him;
proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little
concerned about the feelings of others.
Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton’s wanting to pay his
addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his
proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment,
and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the
arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she
was perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need
be cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language
or manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she
could hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice,
less allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him.
He only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse
of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so
easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody
else with twenty, or with ten.
But—that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware
of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry
him!—should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!—look down
upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below
him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no
presumption in addressing her!—It was most provoking.
Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her
inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of
such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that
in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must know
that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at
Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family—and that the
Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was
inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate,
to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from
other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell
Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses
had long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood
which Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as
he could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend
him to notice but his situation and his civility.—But he had fancied
her in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and
after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners
and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop and
admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and
obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real
motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and
delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite.
If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to
wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken
hers.
The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was
wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It
was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought
to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite
concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.
“Here have I,” said she, “actually talked poor Harriet into being very
much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for
me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had
not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I
used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her
not to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done
of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and
chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the
opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have
attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.
I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel
this disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any
body else who would be at all desirable for her;—William Coxe—Oh! no, I
could not endure William Coxe—a pert young lawyer.”
She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a
more serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might
be, and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to
Harriet, and all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the
awkwardness of future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or
discontinuing the acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing
resentment, and avoiding eclat, were enough to occupy her in most
unmirthful reflections some time longer, and she went to bed at last
with nothing settled but the conviction of her having blundered most
dreadfully.
To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary
gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of
spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,
and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough
to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of
softened pain and brighter hope.
Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone