Emma
These were her reasons—she had no better.
It was a dislike so little just—every imputed fault was so magnified by
fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any
considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and
now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’
interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and
manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating.
Jane Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself
the highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as
almost every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall;
her figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium,
between fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed
to point out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all
this; and then, her face—her features—there was more beauty in them
altogether than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very
pleasing beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and
eyebrows, had never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she
had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and
delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty,
of which elegance was the reigning character, and as such, she must, in
honour, by all her principles, admire it:—elegance, which, whether of
person or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be
vulgar, was distinction, and merit.
In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with
twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering
justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When
she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty;
when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she
was going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible
to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially, if to every
well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly
probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had so
naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more
pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on.
Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon’s
affections from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her
imagination had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be
simple, single, successless love on her side alone. She might have been
unconsciously sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his
conversation with her friend; and from the best, the purest of motives,
might now be denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to
divide herself effectually from him and his connexions by soon
beginning her career of laborious duty.
Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings,
as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury
afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that
she could wish to scheme about for her.
These were charming feelings—but not lasting. Before she had committed
herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane
Fairfax, or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and
errors, than saying to Mr. Knightley, “She certainly is handsome; she
is better than handsome!” Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with
her grandmother and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its
usual state. Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome
as ever; more tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to
admiration of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of
exactly how little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how
small a slice of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of
new caps and new workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane’s
offences rose again. They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the
thanks and praise which necessarily followed appeared to her an
affectation of candour, an air of greatness, meaning only to shew off
in higher style her own very superior performance. She was, besides,
which was the worst of all, so cold, so cautious! There was no getting
at her real opinion. Wrapt up in a cloak of politeness, she seemed
determined to hazard nothing. She was disgustingly, was suspiciously
reserved.
If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved
on the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed
bent on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon’s character, or her own
value for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It
was all general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or
distinguished. It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown
away. Emma saw its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There
probably _was_ something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr.
Dixon, perhaps, had been very near changing one friend for the other,
or been fixed only to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve
thousand pounds.
The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill
had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a
little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma
procure as to what he truly was. “Was he handsome?”—“She believed he
was reckoned a very fine young man.” “Was he agreeable?”—“He was
generally thought so.” “Did he appear a sensible young man; a young man
of information?”—“At a watering-place, or in a common London
acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were
all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than
they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his
manners pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her.
CHAPTER III
Emma could not forgive her;—but as neither provocation nor resentment
were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had
seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was
expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with
Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might
have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain
enough to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her
unjust to Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement.
“A very pleasant evening,” he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been
talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers
swept away;—“particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some
very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than
sitting at one’s ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such
young women; sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am
sure Miss Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left
nothing undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no
instrument at her grandmother’s, it must have been a real indulgence.”
“I am happy you approved,” said Emma, smiling; “but I hope I am not
often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield.”
“No, my dear,” said her father instantly; “_that_ I am sure you are
not. There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any
thing, you are too attentive. The muffin last night—if it had been
handed round once, I think it would have been enough.”
“No,” said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; “you are not often
deficient; not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I
think you understand me, therefore.”
An arch look expressed—“I understand you well enough;” but she said
only, “Miss Fairfax is reserved.”
“I always told you she was—a little; but you will soon overcome all
that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its
foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be
honoured.”
“You think her diffident. I do not see it.”
“My dear Emma,” said he, moving from his chair into one close by her,
“you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant
evening.”
“Oh! no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions;
and amused to think how little information I obtained.”
“I am disappointed,” was his only answer.
“I hope every body had a pleasant evening,” said Mr. Woodhouse, in his
quiet way. “I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I
moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me.
Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though
she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs.
Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane
Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a very
well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening
agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.”
“True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.”
Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the
present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question—
“She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one’s eyes
from. I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my
heart.”
Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to
express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose
thoughts were on the Bates’s, said—
“It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a
great pity indeed! and I have often wished—but it is so little one can
venture to do—small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon—Now we
have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg;
it is very small and delicate—Hartfield pork is not like any other
pork—but still it is pork—and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure
of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried,
without the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear
roast pork—I think we had better send the leg—do not you think so, my
dear?”
“My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it.
There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice,
and the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like.”
“That’s right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but
that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it
is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle
boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a
little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome.”
“Emma,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “I have a piece of news for you.
You like news—and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will
interest you.”
“News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?—why do you smile
so?—where did you hear it?—at Randalls?”
He had time only to say,
“No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls,” when the door was
thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full
of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give
quickest. Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that
not another syllable of communication could rest with him.
“Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse—I
come quite over-powered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You are
too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be
married.”
Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so
completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a
little blush, at the sound.
“There is my news:—I thought it would interest you,” said Mr.
Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what