Emma
introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might
have been strictly correct.—I feel that I should certainly have been
impertinent.”
“Oh!” cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought
infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual
composure—“there would have been no danger. The danger would have been
of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than by
expressing an interest—. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more
collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very
great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those
of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not
disgusted to such a degree as to—I have not time for half that I could
wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for
myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunately—in short, if your
compassion does not stand my friend—”
“Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are,” cried Emma warmly, and
taking her hand. “You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you
might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted
even—”
“You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.—So cold and
artificial!—I had always a part to act.—It was a life of deceit!—I know
that I must have disgusted you.”
“Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.
Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done
quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you
have pleasant accounts from Windsor?”
“Very.”
“And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you—just as
I begin to know you.”
“Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here
till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”
“Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps,” replied Emma,
smiling—“but, excuse me, it must be thought of.”
The smile was returned as Jane answered,
“You are very right; it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I
am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill
at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of
deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing
more to wait for.”
“Thank you, thank you.—This is just what I wanted to be assured of.—Oh!
if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and
open!—Good-bye, good-bye.”
CHAPTER XVII
Mrs. Weston’s friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the
satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by
knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in
wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with
any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of
Isabella’s sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both
father and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as
he grew older—and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years
hence—to have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense,
the freaks and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and
Mrs. Weston—no one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her;
and it would be quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to
teach, should not have their powers in exercise again.
“She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me,” she
continued—“like La Baronne d’Almane on La Comtesse d’Ostalis, in Madame
de Genlis’ Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little
Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan.”
“That is,” replied Mr. Knightley, “she will indulge her even more than
she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will
be the only difference.”
“Poor child!” cried Emma; “at that rate, what will become of her?”
“Nothing very bad.—The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable in
infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my
bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing
all my happiness to _you_, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me
to be severe on them?”
Emma laughed, and replied: “But I had the assistance of all your
endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt
whether my own sense would have corrected me without it.”
“Do you?—I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:—Miss Taylor
gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite
as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what
right has he to lecture me?—and I am afraid very natural for you to
feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did
you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of
the tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much
without doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many
errors, have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at
least.”
“I am sure you were of use to me,” cried Emma. “I was very often
influenced rightly by you—oftener than I would own at the time. I am
very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be
spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her
as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is
thirteen.”
“How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your
saucy looks—‘Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I
may, or I have Miss Taylor’s leave’—something which, you knew, I did
not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad
feelings instead of one.”
“What an amiable creature I was!—No wonder you should hold my speeches
in such affectionate remembrance.”
“‘Mr. Knightley.’—You always called me, ‘Mr. Knightley;’ and, from
habit, it has not so very formal a sound.—And yet it is formal. I want
you to call me something else, but I do not know what.”
“I remember once calling you ‘George,’ in one of my amiable fits, about
ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as
you made no objection, I never did it again.”
“And cannot you call me ‘George’ now?”
“Impossible!—I never can call you any thing but ‘Mr. Knightley.’ I will
not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by
calling you Mr. K.—But I will promise,” she added presently, laughing
and blushing—“I will promise to call you once by your Christian name. I
do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;—in the building in
which N. takes M. for better, for worse.”
Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important
service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the advice
which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly
follies—her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a
subject.—She could not enter on it.—Harriet was very seldom mentioned
between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not
being thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to
delicacy, and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship
were declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other
circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that
her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on
Isabella’s letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being
obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior
to the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.
Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be
expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits,
which appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be
consulted; but, since that business had been over, she did not appear
to find Harriet different from what she had known her before.—Isabella,
to be sure, was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been
equal to playing with the children, it would not have escaped her.
Emma’s comforts and hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet’s
being to stay longer; her fortnight was likely to be a month at least.
Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were to come down in August, and she was
invited to remain till they could bring her back.
“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley. “Here is
his answer, if you like to see it.”
It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma
accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to
know what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that
her friend was unmentioned.
“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr.
Knightley, “but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to
have, likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from
making flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather
cool in her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”
“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the
letter. “I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the
good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not
without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as
you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different
construction, I should not have believed him.”
“My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means—”
“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,”
interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile—“much less, perhaps, than
he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the
subject.”
“Emma, my dear Emma—”
“Oh!” she cried with more thorough gaiety, “if you fancy your brother
does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret,
and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from
doing _you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the
advantage, on your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish
I may not sink into ‘poor Emma’ with him at once.—His tender compassion
towards oppressed worth can go no farther.”
“Ah!” he cried, “I wish your father might be half as easily convinced
as John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give,
to be happy together. I am amused by one part of John’s letter—did you
notice it?—where he says, that my information did not take him wholly
by surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of
the kind.”
“If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having some
thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly
unprepared for that.”
“Yes, yes—but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my
feelings. What has he been judging by?—I am not conscious of any
difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at this
time for my marrying any more than at another.—But it was so, I
suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them
the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much
as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, ‘Uncle seems
always tired now.’”
The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other
persons’ reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently
recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse’s visits, Emma having it in view that
her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first
to announce it at home, and then at Randalls.—But how to break it to
her father at last!—She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of
Mr. Knightley’s absence, or when it came to the point her heart would
have failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to
come at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.—She
was forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it