“I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be tempted; Mr. Elton, you know,(recollecting herself,) is out of the question: and I do _not_ wish to see any such person.I would rather not be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.”
“Dear me!—it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”—
“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing!but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And,without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine.Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want:I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield;and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important;so always first and always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”
“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”
“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet;and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates!so silly—so satisfied—so smiling—so prosing—so undistinguishing and unfastidious—and so apt to tell every thing relative to every body about me,I would marry to-morrow. But between _us_, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unmarried.”
“But still, you will be an old maid!and that’s so dreadful!”
“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid;and it is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public!A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid!the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable,and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.And the distinction is not quite so much against the candour and common sense of the world as appears at first;for a very narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper.Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior,society, may well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates;she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general,she is very much to the taste of every body, though single and though poor.Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind: I really believe,if she had only a shilling in the world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it;and nobody is afraid of her: that is a great charm.”
“Dear me!but what shall you do?how shall you employ yourself when you grow old?”
“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources;and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty.Woman’s usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they are now;or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music,I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest, objects for the affections,which is in truth the great point of inferiority,the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in _not_ marrying,I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much, to care about.There will be enough of them, in all probability,to supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need.There will be enough for every hope and every fear;and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent,it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces!—I shall often have a niece with me.”
“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece?That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred times—but are you acquainted?”
“Oh!yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to Highbury. By the bye,_that_ is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid!at least, that I should ever bore people half so much about all the Knightleys together,as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax.Every letter from her is read forty times over;her compliments to all friends go round and round again;and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher,or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month.I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.”
They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were superseded.Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness,her counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways,could allow for their ignorance and their temptations,had no romantic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little;entered into their troubles with ready sympathy,and always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In the present instance,it was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit;and after remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice,she quitted the cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,
“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make every thing else appear!—I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these poor creatures all the rest of the day;and yet, who can say how soon it may all vanish from my mind?”
“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures!one can think of nothing else.”
“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said Emma,as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the narrow,slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the lane again.“I do not think it will,” stopping to look once more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.
“Oh!dear, no,” said her companion.
They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was passed, Mr.Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma time only to say farther,
“Ah!Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers,it has done all that is truly important. If we feel for the wretched,enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”
Harriet could just answer, “Oh!dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however,were the first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit he would now defer;but they had a very interesting parley about what could be done and should be done. Mr.Elton then turned back to accompany them.
“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Emma;“to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase of love on each side.I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.”
Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could,she soon afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one side of the lane,leaving them together in the main road.But she had not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of dependence and imitation were bringing her up too,and that, in short, they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately stopped,under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing of her half-boot,and stooping down in complete occupation of the footpath,begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would follow in half a minute.They did as they were desired; and by the time she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot,she had the comfort of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the cottage,setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch broth from Hartfield.To walk by the side of this child, and talk to and question her,was the most natural thing in the world, or would have been the most natural,had she been acting just then without design;and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead,without any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however, involuntarily:the child’s pace was quick, and theirs rather slow; and she was the more concerned at it,from their being evidently in a conversation which interested them. Mr.Elton was speaking with animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma,having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back a little more,when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join them.
Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail;and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday’s party at his friend Cole’s,and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter,the celery, the beet-root, and all the dessert.
“This would soon have led to something better, of course,” was her consoling reflection;“any thing interests between those who love;and any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I could but have kept longer away!”
They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage pales,when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the house,made her again find something very much amiss about her boot,and fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short,and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to entreat them to stop,and acknowledged her inability to put herself to rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort.
“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to contrive.I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I hope I am not often so ill-equipped.Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your house,and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string, or any thing just to keep my boot on.”
Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition;and nothing could exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage.The room they were taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards;behind it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between them was open,and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive her assistance in the most comfortable manner.She was obliged to leave the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr.Elton should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar;but by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation,she hoped to make it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining room.For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be protracted no longer.She was then obliged to be finished, and make her appearance.
The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most favourable aspect; and,for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having schemed successfully. But it would not do;he had not come to the point. He had been most agreeable, most delightful;he had told Harriet that he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them;other little gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.
“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma; “he advances inch by inch,and will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.”
Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her ingenious device,she could not but flatter herself that it had been the occasion of much present enjoyment to both,and must be leading them forward to the great event.
CHAPTER XI
Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma’s power to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures.The coming of her sister’s family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation,and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest;and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be expected—she did not herself expect—that any thing beyond occasional,fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers.They might advance rapidly if they would, however;they must advance somehow or other whether they would or no.She hardly wished to have more leisure for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.
Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent from Surry,were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest. Till this year,every long vacation since their marriage had been divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey;but all the holidays of this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children,and it was therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their Surry connexions,or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be induced to get so far as London,even for poor Isabella’s sake; and who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in forestalling this too short visit.
He thought much of the evils of the journey for her,and not a little of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some of the party the last half of the way;but his alarms were needless; the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs.John Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids,all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival, the many to be talked to,welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed and disposed of,produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could not have borne under any other cause,nor have endured much longer even for this;but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley,that in spite of maternal solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones,and for their having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and drinking,and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for, without the smallest delay,the children were never allowed to be long a disturbance to him,either in themselves or in any restless attendance on them.
Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet manners,and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt up in her family; a devoted wife,a doating mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister that,but for these higher ties, a warmer love might have seemed impossible.She could never see a fault in any of them.She was not a woman of strong understanding or any quickness;and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also much of his constitution;was delicate in her own health, over-careful of that of her children,had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond of her own Mr.Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry. They were alike too,in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong habit of regard for every old acquaintance.
Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man; rising in his profession,domestic, and respectable in his private character;but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally pleasing;and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an ill-tempered man,not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a reproach;but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with such a worshipping wife,it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased.The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his.He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she wanted,and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing.
He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong in him escaped her.She was quick in feeling the little injuries to Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself.Perhaps she might have passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella’s sister,but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without praise and without blindness;but hardly any degree of personal compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into,the want of respectful forbearance towards her father.There he had not always the patience that could have been wished. Mr.Woodhouse’s peculiarities and fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or sharp retort equally ill-bestowed.It did not often happen; for Mr. John Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law,and generally a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma’s charity,especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently to be endured,though the offence came not. The beginning, however,of every visit displayed none but the properest feelings,and this being of necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality.They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse,with a melancholy shake of the head and a sigh,called his daughter’s attention to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last.
“Ah, my dear,” said he, “poor Miss Taylor—It is a grievous business.”
“Oh yes, sir,” cried she with ready sympathy, “how you must miss her!And dear Emma, too!—What a dreadful loss to you both!—I have been so grieved for you.—I could not imagine how you could possibly do without her.—It is a sad change indeed.—But I hope she is pretty well, sir.”
“Pretty well, my dear—I hope—pretty well.—I do not know but that the place agrees with her tolerably. ”
Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts of the air of Randalls.
“Oh!no—none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my life—never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret.”
“Very much to the honour of both,” was the handsome reply.
“And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?” asked Isabella in the plaintive tone which just suited her father.
Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.—“Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish.”
“Oh!papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they married.Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one, have we seen either Mr.Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both, either at Randalls or here—and as you may suppose,Isabella, most frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr.Weston is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way,you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all.Every body must be aware that Miss Taylor must be missed,but every body ought also to be assured that Mr. and Mrs.Weston do really prevent our missing her by any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated—which is the exact truth. ”
“Just as it should be,” said Mr. John Knightley, “and just as I hoped it was from your letters.Her wish of shewing you attention could not be doubted,and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I have been always telling you,my love, that I had no idea of the change being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended;and now you have Emma’s account, I hope you will be satisfied.”
“Why, to be sure,” said Mr. Woodhouse—“yes, certainly—I cannot deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs.Weston, does come and see us pretty often—but then—she is always obliged to go away again.”
“It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.—You quite forget poor Mr. Weston.”
“I think, indeed,” said John Knightley pleasantly, “that Mr. Weston has some little claim.You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the poor husband. I, being a husband,and you not being a wife, the claims of the man may very likely strike us with equal force.As for Isabella, she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can.”
“Me, my love,” cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part.—“Are you talking about me?—I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a greater advocate for matrimony than I am;and if it had not been for the misery of her leaving Hartfield,I should never have thought of Miss Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world;and as to slighting Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston,I think there is nothing he does not deserve.I believe he is one of the very best-tempered men that ever existed.Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal for temper.I shall never forget his flying Henry’s kite for him that very windy day last Easter—and ever since his particular kindness last September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o’clock at night, on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better man in existence.—If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor.”
“Where is the young man?” said John Knightley. “Has he been here on this occasion—or has he not?”
“He has not been here yet,” replied Emma.“There was a strong expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in nothing;and I have not heard him mentioned lately.”
“But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,” said her father. “He wrote a letter to poor Mrs.Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me.I thought it very well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one cannot tell.He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps—”
“My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.”
“Three-and-twenty!—is he indeed?—Well, I could not have thought it—and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother!Well, time does fly indeed!—and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs.Weston a great deal of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept.28th—and began, ‘My dear Madam,’ but I forget how it went on; and it was signed ‘F. C.Weston Churchill.’—I remember that perfectly.”
“How very pleasing and proper of him!” cried the good-hearted Mrs. John Knightley.“I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man.But how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father!There is something so shocking in a child’s being taken away from his parents and natural home!I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with him. To give up one’s child!I really never could think well of any body who proposed such a thing to any body else.”
“Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy,” observed Mr. John Knightley coolly.“But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt what you would feel in giving up Henry or John.Mr. Weston is rather an easy, cheerful-tempered man, than a man of strong feelings;he takes things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other, depending,I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his comforts, that is,upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing whist with his neighbours five times a week,than upon family affection, or any thing that home affords.”
Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had half a mind to take it up;but she struggled, and let it pass. She would keep the peace if possible;and there was something honourable and valuable in the strong domestic habits,the all-sufficiency of home to himself,whence resulted her brother’s disposition to look down on the common rate of social intercourse,and those to whom it was important.—It had a high claim to forbearance.
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Knightley was to dine with them—rather against the inclination of Mr. Woodhouse,who did not like that any one should share with him in Isabella’s first day.Emma’s sense of right however had decided it;and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had particular pleasure,from the circumstance of the late disagreement between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper invitation.
She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time to make up.Making-up indeed would not do. _She_ certainly had not been in the wrong,and _he_ would never own that he had. Concession must be out of the question;but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever quarrelled;and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of friendship,that when he came into the room she had one of the children with her—the youngest,a nice little girl about eight months old, who was now making her first visit to Hartfield,and very happy to be danced about in her aunt’s arms. It did assist;for though he began with grave looks and short questions,he was soon led on to talk of them all in the usual way,and to take the child out of her arms with all the unceremoniousness of perfect amity.Emma felt they were friends again; and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction,and then a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the baby,
“What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces. As to men and women,our opinions are sometimes very different; but with regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.”
“If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women,and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with them,as you are where these children are concerned, we might always think alike.”
“To be sure—our discordancies must always arise from my being in the wrong.”
“Yes,” said he, smiling—“and reason good. I was sixteen years old when you were born.”
“A material difference then,” she replied—“and no doubt you were much my superior in judgment at that period of our lives;but does not the lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal nearer?”
“Yes—a good deal _nearer_.”
“But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we think differently.”
“I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years’ experience,and by not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, let us be friends,and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little Emma,that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances,and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”
“That’s true,” she cried—“very true. Little Emma, grow up a better woman than your aunt.Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more,and I have done. As far as good intentions went, we were _both_ right,and I must say that no effects on my side of the argument have yet proved wrong.I only want to know that Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed.”
“A man cannot be more so,” was his short, full answer.
“Ah!—Indeed I am very sorry.—Come, shake hands with me.”
This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley made his appearance, and “How d’ye do, George?” and “John, how are you?” succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference,the real attachment which would have led either of them, if requisite,to do every thing for the good of the other.
The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr.Woodhouse declined cards entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella,and the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his daughter;on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally distinct,or very rarely mixing—and Emma only occasionally joining in one or the other.
The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally of those of the elder,whose temper was by much the most communicative, and who was always the greater talker.As a magistrate, he had generally some point of law to consult John about, or, at least,some curious anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at Donwell,he had to tell what every field was to bear next year,and to give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his life,and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change of a fence,the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for wheat, turnips, or spring corn,was entered into with as much equality of interest by John,as his cooler manners rendered possible;and if his willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about,his inquiries even approached a tone of eagerness.
While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr.Woodhouse was enjoying a full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.
“My poor dear Isabella,” said he, fondly taking her hand, and interrupting, for a few moments,her busy labours for some one of her five children—“How long it is, how terribly long since you were here!And how tired you must be after your journey!You must go to bed early, my dear—and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.—You and I will have a nice basin of gruel together.My dear Emma, suppose we all have a little gruel.”
Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the Mr.Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself;—and two basins only were ordered.After a little more discourse in praise of gruel,with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,
“It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South End instead of coming here.I never had much opinion of the sea air.”