Emma
the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort
of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father, it
was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley
would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most
solemn resolution of never quitting her father.—She even wept over the
idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an
engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger
of drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.—How
to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;—how to spare
her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement;
how to appear least her enemy?—On these subjects, her perplexity and
distress were very great—and her mind had to pass again and again
through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever
surrounded it.—She could only resolve at last, that she would still
avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by
letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed
just now for a time from Highbury, and—indulging in one scheme
more—nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation
for her to Brunswick Square.—Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;
and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.—She did
not think it in Harriet’s nature to escape being benefited by novelty
and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.—At any rate,
it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom
every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the
evil day, when they must all be together again.
She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which
left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking
up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half
an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him,
literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a
proper share of the happiness of the evening before.
He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the
slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was
brought her from Randalls—a very thick letter;—she guessed what it must
contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.—She was now in
perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she
wanted only to have her thoughts to herself—and as for understanding
any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.—It must be
waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;—a
note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to
Mrs. Weston.
“I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the
enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have
scarcely a doubt of its happy effect.—I think we shall never materially
disagree about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long
preface.—We are quite well.—This letter has been the cure of all the
little nervousness I have been feeling lately.—I did not quite like
your looks on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you
will never own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a
north-east wind.—I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of
Tuesday afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing
last night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill.
“Yours ever,
“A. W.”
[_To Mrs. Weston_.]
Windsor—July.
MY DEAR MADAM,
“If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be expected;
but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and
indulgence.—You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of
even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.—But
I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage
rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be
humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for
pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,
and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.—You
must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when
I first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret
which was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to
place myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another
question. I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it
a right, I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below,
and casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my
difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to
require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we
parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the
creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.—Had she refused, I
should have gone mad.—But you will be ready to say, what was your hope
in doing this?—What did you look forward to?—To any thing, every
thing—to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,
perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of
good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining
her promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther
explanation, I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband’s
son, and the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good,
which no inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value
of.—See me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit
to Randalls;—and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might
have been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come
till Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person
slighted, you will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father’s
compassion, by reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from
his house, so long I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour,
during the very happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I
hope, lay me open to reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I
come to the principal, the only important part of my conduct while
belonging to you, which excites my own anxiety, or requires very
solicitous explanation. With the greatest respect, and the warmest
friendship, do I mention Miss Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I
ought to add, with the deepest humiliation.—A few words which dropped
from him yesterday spoke his opinion, and some censure I acknowledge
myself liable to.—My behaviour to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe,
more than it ought.—In order to assist a concealment so essential to
me, I was led on to make more than an allowable use of the sort of
intimacy into which we were immediately thrown.—I cannot deny that Miss
Woodhouse was my ostensible object—but I am sure you will believe the
declaration, that had I not been convinced of her indifference, I would
not have been induced by any selfish views to go on.—Amiable and
delightful as Miss Woodhouse is, she never gave me the idea of a young
woman likely to be attached; and that she was perfectly free from any
tendency to being attached to me, was as much my conviction as my
wish.—She received my attentions with an easy, friendly, goodhumoured
playfulness, which exactly suited me. We seemed to understand each
other. From our relative situation, those attentions were her due, and
were felt to be so.—Whether Miss Woodhouse began really to understand
me before the expiration of that fortnight, I cannot say;—when I called
to take leave of her, I remember that I was within a moment of
confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not without suspicion;
but I have no doubt of her having since detected me, at least in some
degree.—She may not have surmised the whole, but her quickness must
have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find, whenever the
subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it did not take
her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it. I remember
her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude for her
attentions to Miss Fairfax.—I hope this history of my conduct towards
her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation of what
you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against Emma
Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and
procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes of
that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly
affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as
myself.—Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight,
you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to
get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.
If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.—Of
the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that
its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F—, who would never
have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.—The delicacy
of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam, is much
beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly hope,
know her thoroughly yourself.—No description can describe her. She must
tell you herself what she is—yet not by word, for never was there a
human creature who would so designedly suppress her own merit.—Since I
began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw, I have heard
from her.—She gives a good account of her own health; but as she never
complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion of her looks.
I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread of the visit.
Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without delay; I am
impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few minutes I was at
Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and I am not much
better yet; still insane either from happiness or misery. When I think
of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her excellence and
patience, and my uncle’s generosity, I am mad with joy: but when I
recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little I deserve
to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her again!—But
I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me to
encroach.—I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard all
that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail
yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness
with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the
event of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me
the happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early
measures, but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not
an hour to lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty,
and she would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength
and refinement.—But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had
entered into with that woman—Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to
leave off abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.—I have been
walking over the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make
the rest of my letter what it ought to be.—It is, in fact, a most
mortifying retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can
admit, that my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were
highly blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been
enough.—My plea of concealing the truth she did not think
sufficient.—She was displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought
her, on a thousand occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I