Emma
thought her even cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her
judgment, and subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed
proper, I should have escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever
known.—We quarrelled.— Do you remember the morning spent at
Donwell?—_There_ every little dissatisfaction that had occurred before
came to a crisis. I was late; I met her walking home by herself, and
wanted to walk with her, but she would not suffer it. She absolutely
refused to allow me, which I then thought most unreasonable. Now,
however, I see nothing in it but a very natural and consistent degree
of discretion. While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was
behaving one hour with objectionable particularity to another woman,
was she to be consenting the next to a proposal which might have made
every previous caution useless?—Had we been met walking together
between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must have been suspected.—I was
mad enough, however, to resent.—I doubted her affection. I doubted it
more the next day on Box Hill; when, provoked by such conduct on my
side, such shameful, insolent neglect of her, and such apparent
devotion to Miss W., as it would have been impossible for any woman of
sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in a form of words perfectly
intelligible to me.—In short, my dear madam, it was a quarrel blameless
on her side, abominable on mine; and I returned the same evening to
Richmond, though I might have staid with you till the next morning,
merely because I would be as angry with her as possible. Even then, I
was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time; but I was
the injured person, injured by her coldness, and I went away determined
that she should make the first advances.—I shall always congratulate
myself that you were not of the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my
behaviour there, I can hardly suppose you would ever have thought well
of me again. Its effect upon her appears in the immediate resolution it
produced: as soon as she found I was really gone from Randalls, she
closed with the offer of that officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of
whose treatment of her, by the bye, has ever filled me with indignation
and hatred. I must not quarrel with a spirit of forbearance which has
been so richly extended towards myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly
protest against the share of it which that woman has known.—‘Jane,’
indeed!—You will observe that I have not yet indulged myself in calling
her by that name, even to you. Think, then, what I must have endured in
hearing it bandied between the Eltons with all the vulgarity of
needless repetition, and all the insolence of imaginary superiority.
Have patience with me, I shall soon have done.—She closed with this
offer, resolving to break with me entirely, and wrote the next day to
tell me that we never were to meet again.—_She_ _felt_ _the_
_engagement_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _source_ _of_ _repentance_ _and_ _misery_
_to_ _each_: _she_ _dissolved_ _it_.—This letter reached me on the very
morning of my poor aunt’s death. I answered it within an hour; but from
the confusion of my mind, and the multiplicity of business falling on
me at once, my answer, instead of being sent with all the many other
letters of that day, was locked up in my writing-desk; and I, trusting
that I had written enough, though but a few lines, to satisfy her,
remained without any uneasiness.—I was rather disappointed that I did
not hear from her again speedily; but I made excuses for her, and was
too busy, and—may I add?—too cheerful in my views to be captious.—We
removed to Windsor; and two days afterwards I received a parcel from
her, my own letters all returned!—and a few lines at the same time by
the post, stating her extreme surprize at not having had the smallest
reply to her last; and adding, that as silence on such a point could
not be misconstrued, and as it must be equally desirable to both to
have every subordinate arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she
now sent me, by a safe conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that
if I could not directly command hers, so as to send them to Highbury
within a week, I would forward them after that period to her at—: in
short, the full direction to Mr. Smallridge’s, near Bristol, stared me
in the face. I knew the name, the place, I knew all about it, and
instantly saw what she had been doing. It was perfectly accordant with
that resolution of character which I knew her to possess; and the
secrecy she had maintained, as to any such design in her former letter,
was equally descriptive of its anxious delicacy. For the world would
not she have seemed to threaten me.—Imagine the shock; imagine how,
till I had actually detected my own blunder, I raved at the blunders of
the post.—What was to be done?—One thing only.—I must speak to my
uncle. Without his sanction I could not hope to be listened to again.—I
spoke; circumstances were in my favour; the late event had softened
away his pride, and he was, earlier than I could have anticipated,
wholly reconciled and complying; and could say at last, poor man! with
a deep sigh, that he wished I might find as much happiness in the
marriage state as he had done.—I felt that it would be of a different
sort.—Are you disposed to pity me for what I must have suffered in
opening the cause to him, for my suspense while all was at stake?—No;
do not pity me till I reached Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her.
Do not pity me till I saw her wan, sick looks.—I reached Highbury at
the time of day when, from my knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I
was certain of a good chance of finding her alone.—I was not
disappointed; and at last I was not disappointed either in the object
of my journey. A great deal of very reasonable, very just displeasure I
had to persuade away. But it is done; we are reconciled, dearer, much
dearer, than ever, and no moment’s uneasiness can ever occur between us
again. Now, my dear madam, I will release you; but I could not conclude
before. A thousand and a thousand thanks for all the kindness you have
ever shewn me, and ten thousand for the attentions your heart will
dictate towards her.—If you think me in a way to be happier than I
deserve, I am quite of your opinion.—Miss W. calls me the child of good
fortune. I hope she is right.—In one respect, my good fortune is
undoubted, that of being able to subscribe myself,
Your obliged and affectionate Son,
F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.
CHAPTER XV
This letter must make its way to Emma’s feelings. She was obliged, in
spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the
justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name,
it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting,
and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the
subject could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her
former regard for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any
picture of love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till
she had gone through the whole; and though it was impossible not to
feel that he had been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had
supposed—and he had suffered, and was very sorry—and he was so grateful
to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so
happy herself, that there was no being severe; and could he have
entered the room, she must have shaken hands with him as heartily as
ever.
She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again,
she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston’s wishing it to
be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen
so much to blame in his conduct.
“I shall be very glad to look it over,” said he; “but it seems long. I
will take it home with me at night.”
But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she
must return it by him.
“I would rather be talking to you,” he replied; “but as it seems a
matter of justice, it shall be done.”
He began—stopping, however, almost directly to say, “Had I been offered
the sight of one of this gentleman’s letters to his mother-in-law a few
months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference.”
He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a
smile, observed, “Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his
way. One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s. We will not be
severe.”
“It will be natural for me,” he added shortly afterwards, “to speak my
opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you.
It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it—”
“Not at all. I should wish it.”
Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity.
“He trifles here,” said he, “as to the temptation. He knows he is
wrong, and has nothing rational to urge.—Bad.—He ought not to have
formed the engagement.—‘His father’s disposition:’—he is unjust,
however, to his father. Mr. Weston’s sanguine temper was a blessing on
all his upright and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every
present comfort before he endeavoured to gain it.—Very true; he did not
come till Miss Fairfax was here.”
“And I have not forgotten,” said Emma, “how sure you were that he might
have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely—but you
were perfectly right.”
“I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:—but yet, I think—had
_you_ not been in the case—I should still have distrusted him.”
When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it
aloud—all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the
head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as
the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady
reflection, thus—
“Very bad—though it might have been worse.—Playing a most dangerous
game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.—No judge of his
own manners by you.—Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and
regardless of little besides his own convenience.—Fancying you to have
fathomed his secret. Natural enough!—his own mind full of intrigue,
that he should suspect it in others.—Mystery; Finesse—how they pervert
the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more
and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with
each other?”
Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet’s
account, which she could not give any sincere explanation of.
“You had better go on,” said she.
He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That
was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider
whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the
pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed!—I cannot comprehend a man’s wishing
to give a woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather
dispense with; and he did know that she would have prevented the
instrument’s coming if she could.”
After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill’s
confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for
more than a word in passing.
“I perfectly agree with you, sir,”—was then his remark. “You did behave
very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through
what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his
persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax’s sense of
right, he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad.—He had induced
her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme
difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to
prevent her from suffering unnecessarily.—She must have had much more
to contend with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He