Emma could say no more.They seemed to be within half a sentence of Harriet,and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject,if possible. She made her plan;she would speak of something totally different—the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,
“You will not ask me what is the point of envy.—You are determined,I see, to have no curiosity.—You are wise—but _I_ cannot be wise.Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask,though I may wish it unsaid the next moment.”
“Oh!then, don’t speak it, don’t speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a little time, consider,do not commit yourself.”
“Thank you,” said he,in an accent of deep mortification,and not another syllable followed.
Emma could not bear to give him pain.He was wishing to confide in her—perhaps to consult her;—cost her what it would, she would listen.She might assist his resolution,or reconcile him to it;she might give just praise to Harriet, or,by representing to him his own independence,relieve him from that state of indecision,which must be more intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.—They had reached the house.
“You are going in, I suppose?” said he.
“No,”—replied Emma—quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which he still spoke—“I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not gone.” And, after proceeding a few steps, she added—“I stopped you ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you pain.—But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation—as a friend, indeed, you may command me.—I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think.”
“As a friend!”—repeated Mr. Knightley.—“Emma,that I fear is a word—No, I have no wish—Stay, yes,why should I hesitate?—I have gone too far already for concealment.—Emma,I accept your offer—Extraordinary as it may seem,I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend.—Tell me,then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?”
He stopped in his earnestness to look the question,and the expression of his eyes overpowered her.
“My dearest Emma,” said he,“for dearest you will always be,whatever the event of this hour’s conversation,my dearest, most beloved Emma—tell me at once. Say ‘No,’ if it is to be said.”—She could really say nothing.—“You are silent,” he cried, with great animation; “absolutely silent!at present I ask no more.”
Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment.The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream,was perhaps the most prominent feeling.
“I cannot make speeches, Emma:” he soon resumed;and in a tone of such sincere, decided,intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing.—“If I loved you less,I might be able to talk about it more.But you know what I am.—You hear nothing but truth from me.—I have blamed you,and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.—Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover.—But you understand me.—Yes, you see, you understand my feelings—and will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.”
While he spoke, Emma’s mind was most busy, and,with all the wonderful velocity of thought,had been able—and yet without losing a word—to catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet’s hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a delusion as any of her own—that Harriet was nothing; that she was every thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all received as discouragement from herself.—And not only was there time for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there was time also to rejoice that Harriet’s secret had not escaped her, and to resolve that it need not, and should not.—It was all the service she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the two—or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.—She spoke then, on being so entreated.—What did she say?—Just what she ought, of course.A lady always does.—She said enough to shew there need not be despair—and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence, as for the time crushed every hope;—she had begun by refusing to hear him.—The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;—her proposal of taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!—She felt its inconsistency; but Mr.Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it,and seek no farther explanation.
Seldom, very seldom,does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised,or a little mistaken; but where, as in this case,though the conduct is mistaken, the feelings are not,it may not be very material.—Mr.Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she possessed,or a heart more disposed to accept of his.
He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence.He had followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it.He had come, in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement,with no selfish view, no view at all,but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an opening,to soothe or to counsel her.—The rest had been the work of the moment,the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings.The delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill,of her having a heart completely disengaged from him,had given birth to the hope, that, in time,he might gain her affection himself;—but it had been no present hope—he had only,in the momentary conquest of eagerness over judgment,aspired to be told that she did not forbid his attempt to attach her.—The superior hopes which gradually opened were so much the more enchanting.—The affection, which he had been asking to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!—Within half an hour,he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind,to something so like perfect happiness,that it could bear no other name.