Jane Austen and Her Works

Emma. [45]

I.

Emma Woodhouse, whose Christian name supplies the title to the novel in which she figures as heroine, is one of Jane Austen’s lively, warm-hearted girls; but her personality is rendered quite distinct from that of Elizabeth Bennet by a thousand light yet significant touches. Emma’s circumstances alone would have sufficed, with the moulding power which such influences have in reality, and in the hands of a true artist, to shape her—always within certain limits—those of a well-principled, well-educated, essentially feminine girl, who is also a thorough lady, to different ends.

The novel of “Emma” is largely the record of the girl-heroine’s rash blunders and errors; but to me it is instructive and comforting to find the faults, with their impressive enough lessons, not only so girlish, but always within the region, I may say, of an innocent, upright, kindly, well-bred girl, whose many failings lean to virtue’s side. Emma Woodhouse is as incapable of deliberate undutifulness, dishonourable double-dealing, heartless levity, or disgraceful imprudence, and the coarse, evil-minded rubbing shoulders with vice, as I not only earnestly hope, but fervently believe, every God-fearing, virtuous, loving girl in any rank, in any nation, is to this day, however impudently and wickedly she may be travestied in the lower literature of her country.

Emma Woodhouse, at twenty-one years of age, is at the head of her father’s comfortable, well-ordered establishment of Hartfield, in the village of Highbury, sixteen miles from London, where Emma’s elder sister Isabella, who has been married for several years, is settled.

The two sisters are the sole children of Mr. Woodhouse, who has been a widower since Emma was a child. But her dead mother’s place has been well supplied by an excellent governess, chaperon, and family friend. Miss Taylor, who marries and settles unexceptionably, with a worthy husband, in a country house at half a mile’s distance from Hartfield.

Emma is introduced to the reader on the afternoon of Miss Taylor’s wedding-day, left, for the first time in her life, to dine and spend a long evening with her father, a most amiable man, but a confirmed invalid, whose valetudinarian weaknesses and absurdities Jane Austen often makes irresistibly ridiculous—though all the time she treats him with larger-hearted, gentler consideration than is to be found in her manner of dealing with the foibles of the characters in “Pride and Prejudice,” and “Northanger Abbey;” for the very good reason that the authoress, when she wrote “Emma,” was no longer the brilliant, rather hard girl, but the mature merciful, woman. Between the writing of “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma” she had learnt a grand lesson—the acquisition of which, though it cost the labour of a lifetime, would be well worth the time and trouble—that of tolerance: “to make allowance for us all,” which is not the mere result of a facile, careless temper, or a secret fellow-feeling with the offender in his offence, or a low moral standard, but is simply the widened sympathy and deepened comprehension, both of the better Christian and the greater genius. Thus Mr. Woodhouse is respectable and lovable, in spite of his mild egotism and foolish hypochondria; while Miss Bates—one of the gems of the book—is still more winning in her singleness of heart and inexhaustible contentment and charity, along with her shallow simplicity, thorough humdrumness, and boundless garrulity.

While her father is taking his after-dinner nap Emma contemplates, a little ruefully, the prospect of many such tête-à-tête dinners and long evenings. Yet though Jane Austen tells us plainly that the real evils to which Emma is exposed consist of her having too much of her own way, and being slightly inclined to think too well of herself, she is full of tender reverence and care for her father, in deed even more than in word. All through their history she considers his well-being as the first thing, never hesitates to make sacrifices to ensure it, and caters for his entertainment with the anxious, womanly forethought of a much older and wiser person. In the same way, though it is distinctly a disadvantage and stumbling-block to Emma Woodhouse—not only that the Woodhouses are the persons of greatest consequence in their social circle, but that the circle over which Emma reigns, far too entirely for her own good, is composed of the most commonplace narrow elements that can be found in any village or country neighbourhood—and though Emma wearies of it, becomes impatient of it, is guilty of girlish ebullitions of fretting and fuming where her engagements and acquaintances are concerned—still she never once behaves with the absolute insolence, hardly with the superciliousness, of underbred, ungenerous, self-engrossed youth, exulting in its passing advantages, spurning at what it can see of the defects and infirmities of an older, perhaps more incapable, and illiterate generation, while it is blind in its ignorance to indemnifying stores of homely wisdom and experience.

The claims of hospitality are sacred to the girl, and she is always not only a good woman, but a gentlewoman. We are sure that such vulgar, mean words as “old frumps” and “old tabbies” have never soiled Emma Woodhouse’s lips. Once she so far forgets herself as to prove guilty of being noisy and conspicuous at a picnic, and in the course of that indiscretion of publicly taking off and laughing at an old friend; but Emma does not require the sharp rebuke of the hero to be bitterly sorry for the offence, very much ashamed of it, and eagerly desirous to atone for it by all the kindness in her power.

On the evening of Miss Taylor’s wedding-day, Emma is striving to chat cheerfully with her father, who, fond of everybody he is used to, hates to part with any one of them, hates changes of every kind, and matrimony as the cause of change, and keeps speaking of the fortunate bride with uncalled-for compassion. “Poor Miss Taylor! I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that Mr. Weston ever thought of her!”

“I cannot agree with you, papa;” Emma tries to arrest his lamentations, and to put the step which has been taken in the pleasantest light, by dwelling on the excellence of Mr. Weston’s character and temper (Jane Austen is apt to bring forward temper as of cardinal importance), on Miss Taylor’s natural satisfaction in having a house of her own—for how often they will be going to see her and she will be coming to see them. They must begin, they must go and pay their wedding visit very soon.

“My dear, how am I to get so far?” objects plaintive Mr. Woodhouse. “Randall’s is such a distance, I could not walk half so far.”

“No, papa! nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, to be sure.”

“The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to, for such a little way; and where are the poor horses to be, while we are paying our visit?”[46]

“They are to be put into Mr. Weston’s stables, papa. You know we have settled that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going to Randalls, because of his daughter’s being housemaid there. I only doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing, papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you mentioned her—James is so obliged to you.”

Mr. Woodhouse’s kindness and innocent self-importance are equally gratified by being reminded of this good deed. He is enticed to expatiate on civil, pretty-spoken Hannah, for whom he has procured an advantageous place—not the least of its advantages in Mr. Woodhouse’s eyes being, that when James goes over to see his daughter, he will carry her news of the family at Hartfield.

Emma spares no exertions to encourage the happier train of thought, and by the help of backgammon is sanguine about getting her father tolerably through the evening, when a frequent visitor, another near neighbour, walks in, and renders the backgammon-table unnecessary.

“Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight and thirty, was not only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but connected with it as the elder brother of Isabella Woodhouse’s husband.”

Did ever hero enter more unassumingly on the scene? Was ever even the merest walking gentleman more succinctly or prosaically described? And yet George Knightley is a very hero of heroes, far in advance of Darcy in “Pride and Prejudice” where the highest manliness and generosity of character are in question.

I shall only pause a moment to remark that Jane Austen, in depriving Mr. Knightley of the bloom of youth, goes in the teeth of contemporary standards of age to which she herself paid deference in “Sense and Sensibility,” when she made Marianne Dashwood regard Colonel Brandon—a contemporary of Mr. Knightley’s—as quite an old man, fitted for flannel vests and rheumatism.

To Mr. Knightley Emma starts an idea which has taken possession of her susceptible imagination, and which has a considerable influence on her later conduct.

“I made the match, you know, four years ago,” she says triumphantly, in allusion to the topic of the day. “To have it take place, and be proved in the right when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may comfort me for anything.”

Mr. Knightley shakes his head at her. He has known her from infancy, seen her grow up with all that is charming in her, only slightly spoilt. He has more than an old friend’s regard for her, but he is also one of the few persons among her friends who sees her faults, and tells her of them—a process not particularly agreeable to Emma, and still more distasteful to her doting father; so that she has to assert stoutly, as if she liked the censure, “Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know, in a joke, only in a joke. We always say what we like to each other.”

In defiance of Mr. Knightley’s shake of the head—indeed, spurred on by it—Emma insists that she arranged the match from the day Mr. Weston gallantly went and borrowed two umbrellas from Farmer Mitchell’s, and brought them to her and Miss Taylor when it began to drizzle in Broadway Lane. Emma boasts of the success of her scheme, and laughingly announces herself a future match-maker.

She does not go unchallenged by Mr. Knightley.

“I do not know what you mean by ‘success,’” he says, and observes, with brotherly bluntness and irony, that her time has been properly and delicately spent if she has been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about a marriage—a worthy employment for a young lady’s mind. Then he treats her pretensions with smiling scorn, and alleges she made a lucky guess, which is all that can be said.

Emma argues that she promoted Mr. Weston’s visits to Hartfield, and when her father begs in all sincerity that she will make no more matches, craves mischievously to be allowed one exception. “Only one more, papa, only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton!—you like Mr. Elton, papa—I must look about for a wife for him. He has been here a whole year, and he has fitted up his house so comfortably that it would be a shame to have him single any longer; and I thought when he was joining their hands to-day, he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way of doing him service.”

“Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish and the chicken,” said Mr. Knightley, “but leave him to choose his own wife. Depend upon it, a man of six or seven and twenty can take care of himself.”

My readers will observe that Emma is as disengaged and disinterested in making matches for her friends as if she were a young matron. She has not a notion of the incumbency of marriage on herself, as even Jane and Elizabeth Bennet felt it, to a certain extent, to be an obligation on them. There is no worldly necessity for it in Emma’s case. She is the independent mistress of Hartfield, at the head of her indulgent father’s establishment, and amply provided for in the future. Jane Austen’s women, as a rule, are not too susceptible. Love and marriage for themselves are not the beginning, middle, and end of their dreams. They are quite willing to grant due prominence to other influences and interests. They would have blushed to have been engrossed by one passion, however lawful—even honourable. It is only because Catherine Morland is very young and simple that she is so entranced by Henry Tilney’s attentions. As it is, had the couple been finally separated, she would have submitted to the inevitable, and been content in time without him. Fanny Price’s devotion to her cousin Edmund is the habit of many years, and is largely made up of gratitude for constant protection and kindness. When Edmund Bertram’s marriage to Mary Crawford appears certain, and when Henry Crawford is wooing Fanny with manly ardour and tender consideration for her difficulties, she is in a fair way—Jane Austen does not conceal it—for transferring her gentle affections from Edmund to Henry. The author’s older women are fine, sensible creatures, capable of being useful and happy in all the relations of life. They can love, with what unselfish fidelity after hope is gone, Anne Elliot shows; but they are always mistresses of themselves, never love-sick—the poor puppets and slaves of passion.

Mr. Weston, Miss Taylor’s husband, has been a widower like Mr. Woodhouse, and his son by the first wife is destined to play a prominent part in the story. Frank Churchill has been early adopted by a wealthy, childless uncle and aunt—his mother’s relations—who give him their name, and are to make him their heir. He has been seldom seen in Highbury, but his praises have gone before him, and it does not diminish his popularity that he writes “a very handsome letter” to his stepmother, though he is not able to pay her a visit.

Within the round of Hartfield visiting—abridged, as it is, by Mr. Woodhouse’s delicate health and invalid habits—are Donwell Abbey,[47] Mr. Knightley’s seat; the vicarage occupied by the young bachelor clergyman, Mr. Elton; the houses in the village which belong respectively to Mr. and Mrs. Perry, the country doctor and his wife; Mrs. Bates, the widow of the late vicar, and her daughter; and Mrs. Goddard, who was the mistress of a school—not a seminary.

Jane Austen gives her view of the education of the period, which was in a transition state, in her definition of a school as distinguished from a seminary—not “an establishment, or anything which professed, in long sentences of refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, upon new principles and new systems, and where young ladies, for enormous pay, might be screwed out of health and into vanity—but a real, honest, old-fashioned boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little education, without any danger of coming back prodigies.” These views were regarded as eminently sensible, moderate, and practical in their day; and no doubt there was, and is, some truth in them. At the same time, the general notion of education is narrow and prejudiced, to be held by so able a woman.

Mr. Woodhouse’s habits make him go abroad rarely, but he is fond of company in a quiet way at home, and Emma finds such company is best secured in the form of “tea visits” from such accommodating old neighbours as the Bateses and Mrs. Goddard. She is delighted to see her father look comfortable, and very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the prosings of the elderly and homely guests do not prove very congenial entertainment for the bright, clever young girl. Therefore she welcomes Mrs. Goddard’s respectful request to be allowed to bring a parlour boarder,[48] Miss Smith, with her.

Harriet Smith is a plump, blooming, blue-eyed, sweet-tempered girl, whose beauty delights Emma’s eye, while her innocent deference and gratitude, together with her unqualified admiration for everything at Hartfield—including its young mistress—touch Emma’s heart and flatter her vanity. She determines, in modern parlance, to “cultivate” Harriet Smith, who is to a great extent friendless, to improve her, to raise her into better society, and to make a companion of her.

Emma does not scruple to propose detaching the girl from the only friends she has—a farmer’s family named Martin. Some of the daughters had been school-fellows of Harriet’s at Mrs. Goddard’s, and they and their mother and brother had been kind to her. These Martins are tenants of Mr. Knightley at the Abbey Mill Farm, and Emma knows that he thinks highly of them; but in her youthful aristocratic fashion she leaps to the conclusion that, from their rank in life, they must be coarse and unpolished. She will be doing a good deed to separate Harriet from her former allies, to whom the girl is so superior. It will be a delightful and praise-worthy task to improve and introduce into Emma’s world this very pretty, modest young creature, who is, of course, to look up to her benefactress and attach herself closely to her.

There is a comical, often-quoted contretemps constantly occurring at these parties of Emma’s. They usually end with suppers,[49] in which such little delicacies as minced chicken and scalloped oysters, carefully provided by the young hostess, are peculiarly acceptable to the guests, whose narrow incomes for the most part necessitate frugal living. But though poor Mr. Woodhouse would have made his guests welcome to anything and everything, his care for their health, in an egotistical reflection of his own experience, causes him to grieve that they will eat. “He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him rather sorry to see anything put upon it. Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could with thorough self-approbation recommend, though he might constrain himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing away the nicer things, to say—

“‘Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs? An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than anybody; I would not recommend an egg boiled by anybody else. But you need not be afraid; they are very small, you see; one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart—a very little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to half a glass of wine?—a small half-glass put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could disagree with you.’”

Imagine the dilemma of the poor, baulked ladies, with their healthy appetites and the little treats laid before them, while the guests could hardly refuse the well-meant advice of the host.

But Emma comes to the rescue, allows her father to talk, but supplies the wants of her company in a much more satisfactory style. She is never indifferent to doing the honours of her father’s house “well and attentively.” Well-bred girls of Emma Woodhouse’s era would in her position have felt ashamed to be found “mooning” and self-absorbed, destitute of any sense of responsibility and thought for others. Nobody then described selfishness with enthusiasm, as an irresistible charm and crowning merit.

Harriet Smith’s intimacy at Hartfield is soon a settled thing. Emma does nothing by halves. As for the simple, docile girl whom Emma has taken up, Harriet is only too proud and pleased to be thus distinguished by the beautiful, “elegant” Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield.

Emma amuses herself by encouraging Harriet’s prattle, which, when it forsakes school-life, runs persistently on the two months’ holiday she had spent with the Martins at Abbey Mill Farm. At first Harriet is in blissful ignorance of the social inferiority of the Farm, and talks with exultation of the two parlours—one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard’s drawing-room; the upper maid, who had lived five-and-twenty years with Mrs. Martin; the eight cows—one of them a little Welsh cow, a very pretty little Welsh cow, of which Harriet had been so fond Mrs. Martin had said it should be called her cow; and the handsome summer-house in the garden, in which, some day next year, they are all to drink tea. And Harriet, after a little encouragement, shows no dislike to talk of the young farmer who is the master of the house. He has shared in the moonlight walks and merry games of his sisters and their friend. “He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her some walnuts because she had said how fond she was of them, and in everything else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd’s son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood everything. He had a very fine flock, and while she was with them he had been bid more for his wool than anybody in the county. She believed everybody spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (there was a blush as she said it) that it was impossible for anybody to be a better son, and therefore she was sure whenever he married, he would make a good husband. Not that she wanted him to marry. She was in no hurry at all.”

“Well done, Mrs. Martin,” thought Emma; “you know what you are about.”

“And when she had come away Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose—the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three teachers—Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson—to sup with her.”

“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of his own business. He does not read?”

“Oh, yes—that is, no—I do not know, but I believe he has read a good deal, but not what you would think anything of. He reads the agricultural reports, and some other books that lie in one of the window-seats, but he reads all them to himself. But sometimes of an evening, before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of ‘Elegant Extracts,’ very entertaining. And I know he has read the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’ He never read the ‘Romance of the Forest,’ nor ‘The Children of the Abbey.’ He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but he is determined to get them now, as soon as ever he can.”

Emma sets herself to change all these cordial relations with the Martins, above all the appreciation of young Martin, in which she sees special danger for her protégée.

Emma begins by gently “setting down” Harriet as to the position of yeomen, and the improbability of her—Emma Woodhouse—having noticed one of them, since Harriet supposes Miss Woodhouse must have seen and known Robert Martin when he rode to market. On the occasion of an accidental encounter between the young farmer and the two girls, Emma takes care to let Harriet perceive that she thinks the young man very plain and clownish in his air. Emma makes Harriet contrast his lack of “gentility”—which, by the way, was not so odious a word last century—with the well-bred manners of Mr. Elton, among others of their acquaintance.

In fact, it is for the young vicar that Emma destines her friend; and in order to bring about an attachment and marriage, which she considers will be advantageous to both, Emma encourages Mr. Elton to spend many of his disengaged evenings at Hartfield, where she has always Harriet Smith with her. The young mistress of the house is altogether oblivious of the fact that the gentleman who, though well enough disposed, is by no means without self-love, and a head which is liable to be turned, may altogether mistake her graciousness.

Mr. Knightley does not approve of the great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith. There is no use in Mrs. Weston, Emma’s attached old friend, urging that it may induce Emma to read more; as she wishes to see Harriet better informed, the girls will read together.

“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing up, at various times, of books that she meant to read regularly through—and very good lists they were, very well chosen, and neatly arranged—sometimes alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen, I remember thinking it did her judgment so much credit, that I preserved it some time, and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting a course of steady reading from Emma.”

Mr. Knightley adds his estimate of the pretty, popular girl. “Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest of her family. At ten years’ old she had the misfortune of being able to answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always quick and assured, Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house, and of you all.”

He inveighs against the unsuitable friendship between Emma and Harriet Smith, as sure to be injurious to both. Harriet is an unconscious flatterer. Her ignorance is in itself hourly flattery. On the other hand, Hartfield will put Harriet out of conceit with her natural sphere. She will only grow refined enough to be uncomfortable among the people with whom her lot is cast.

In the middle of their argument, the two friends break off the dispute to agree in their affectionate admiration of Emma’s person. Here is a graphic and charming picture of the heroine, which removes her attractions far out of the category of what is sickly and fantastic:—“Such an eye! the true hazel eye—and so brilliant! regular features, open countenance, with a complexion—oh, what a bloom of full health! and such a pretty height and size! such a firm and upright figure! There is health not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her glance. One hears something of a child’s being ‘the picture of health;’ now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of grown-up health.”

Yes, indeed, that is what every girl—plain or handsome, should desire to be, for her own good and that of all connected with her. In a summary of the bountiful gifts bestowed on the late Catherine Tait, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, what were reckoned as not the least were the health and strength, beyond those of ordinary women, which fitted her for the worthy performance of her many and arduous duties. Will girls never lay the lesson to heart in time, before they so often fritter and fling away, by culpable neglect and recklessness, one of God’s greatest boons?

Mr. Knightley returns to the charge of the mischievous association of the girls, until he stirs up Mrs. Weston to protest, with regard to Emma: “Where shall we see a better daughter, a kinder sister, a truer friend?”

“Very well,” he answers, “I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella. John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection; and Isabella always thinks as he does, except when he is not quite frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions with me.”

“I have a very sincere interest in Emma,” Mr. Knightley repeats. “Isabella does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest; perhaps, hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her?”

“So do I,” said Mrs. Weston gently, “very much.”

“She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love, with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some doubt of a return; it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts to attract her; and she goes so seldom from home.”

“There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution at present,” says Mrs. Weston, “as can well be.”

The truth is, Mrs. Weston and her husband have a pet plan for their favourite Emma, which is not to be disclosed prematurely.

Emma paints Harriet’s miniature, and Mr. Elton lends all the help of his advice, while complimenting Miss Woodhouse on her talent for drawing, which she regards as his gratitude on Harriet’s account.

Emma takes care to fix upon Mr. Elton as the person with whom she can entrust her little picture to be conveyed to London and framed; while he shows a sufficient sense of her confidence. “He will suit Harriet exactly,” reflects Emma, complacently; “but he does sigh, and languish, and study for compliments, rather more than I could endure as a principal.”

In the meantime, Harriet receives a direct proposal of marriage from young Martin, couched in manly, unaffected terms.

Poor little Harriet, who is really as guileless and kind-hearted as she is simple and silly, is at first much and favourably impressed.

But Emma’s influence, though she does not mean to exercise it unduly, causes Harriet, not without lingering regret, to resolve to decline the offer.

“I could not have visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey Mill Farm,” says Emma, and Harriet is fixed in her resolve.

“That would have been too dreadful, dear Miss Woodhouse. I would not give up the pleasure and honour of being acquainted with you, for anything in the world.”

Mr. Knightley comes in a happy mood to Hartfield, to tell Emma something that will please her about her little friend, Harriet Smith. Though he has condemned the friendship, he can appreciate Harriet’s girlish good qualities; he is even magnanimous enough to compliment Emma on having cured her companion of her school-girl giggle. Robert Martin has confided his attachment to his friend and landlord, who is eager to inform Emma that Harriet Smith will soon have an offer of marriage from a most unexceptionable quarter—Robert Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey Mill in the summer has done his business, and he means to marry her.

“He is very obliging,” said the well-informed Emma; “but is he sure that Harriet means to marry him?”

“Well, well—means to make her an offer, then; will that do?” Mr. Knightley, “who had nothing of ceremony about him,” conceives that Emma is speaking from some scruple of womanly dignity as to his mode of expressing himself. He enlarges on the advantages of the marriage, and his satisfaction with it. He ends with the laughing supposition that Martin may be detaining Harriet in Highbury at that very moment, and she may not be thinking him one of those “tiresome wretches”—as Emma has just styled the Highbury gossips.

“Pray, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, who has been smiling to herself, “how do you know that Mr. Martin did not speak yesterday?”

Certainly he did not absolutely know, but he had understood Harriet Smith was with her all that day.

“Come,” said she, “I will tell you something in return for what you have told me. He did speak yesterday; that is, he wrote, and was refused.”

Mr. Knightley is incredulous and indignant. At last he accuses Emma, with reason, as the moving spirit in the step Harriet has taken. “You have been no friend to Harriet Smith, Emma,” he said; and with equal sense and sincerity he contrasts Harriet with Robert Martin, to the advantage of the latter, and remarks how happy the girl had been among the Martins, till Emma’s injudicious interference.

In the hot argument which ensues, Mr. Knightley takes occasion to tell Emma that if she intends to make a match between Elton and Harriet, her labour will be in vain.

Emma laughs and disclaims.

But Mr. Knightley’s penetration is not to be baffled, and he goes on to assure her Elton will not do. He is a good sort of young man, and a respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make an imprudent marriage.

It is Emma’s turn to be incredulous, though she will not admit her intentions.

The two part in mutual vexation, which causes a coolness between them for weeks.

Emma’s pride is now piqued to accomplish her design; her head gets so full of it, that she is ill-judged enough to let Harriet see what she wishes and expects, and actually talks the foolish girl—who is, at least, perfectly unassuming—into a persuasion that she has inspired Mr. Elton with a passion for her, the belief in which is more than sufficient to create an answering passion in Harriet’s soft, childish heart.

We have next an example of an old favourite employment with girls. Instead of the reading, which never went beyond a few chapters, the only literary pursuit which engages Harriet, and in which Emma, too, takes an interest, the only mental provision she is making for the evening of life,[50] is the collecting and transcribing all the riddles of every sort she can come across.

These were days when, in gatherings of young people even a little above Harriet in rank and education, the company in cropped hair and white frocks, in Brutuses and high-necked, short-waisted coats, played at such ingenious games as “The Traveller,” and circulated riddles for the general entertainment. A new riddle was quite a precious possession to a girl, nearly as good as a new song.

Miss Nash, Mrs. Goddard’s head teacher, had written out as many as three hundred riddles, and Harriet hopes to have more.

Mr. Woodhouse is almost as much interested in the work as the girls, and tries in vain to revive old recollections of the excellent riddles of his youth, which always end in

“Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.”

Mr. Elton, who is constantly with the girls, is induced to furnish a riddle of his own composition—though, with the bashfulness of incipient authorship, he passes it off as a charade which a friend of his has addressed to a young lady, the object of his admiration—and he is gone the next moment. The charade is as follows:—

“My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,

Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease;

Another view of man my second brings,

Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!

“But, ah! united what reverse we have,

Man’s boasted power and freedom all are flown;

Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,

And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.

“Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,

May its approval beam in that soft eye!”

Emma reads, ponders, catches the meaning “courtship,” and happily confident that Mr. Elton, is coming to the point, hands the paper to Harriet.

“‘That soft eye’ can only refer to Harriet,” thinks Emma. “‘Thy ready wit.’ Humph! Harriet’s ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in love to describe her so.”

Harriet’s ready wit exhibits itself in not having an idea of the answer. Can it be “Woman,” or “Neptune,” or “Trident?”

Emma is slightly exasperated; but she takes pains to explain the riddle in detail, and to draw the strongest inferences from its subject, while Harriet beams and blushes with joy and confusion.

Emma now becomes as assiduous as ever Mrs. Bennet, of Longbourn House, showed herself with regard to her daughter, Jane, and her lover Bingley, in making opportunities for Mr. Elton to propose to Harriet Smith.

But lovers are perverse, and will not always avail themselves of the best-planned assistance.

In the course of a walk which Emma and Harriet chance to take past the vicarage, in which the girls are overtaken by the vicar, Emma, having discovered that Harriet had never been inside the house, perpetrates a ruse to enable her friend to see her future home. Emma contrives to break her boot-lace, then announces the accident, and asks Mr. Elton to allow her to go into the vicarage and get a bit of riband or string from his housekeeper to keep the boot on.

Mr. Elton looks all happiness, and is as alert in conducting the ladies to his house as can be wished. But though Emma retires with the housekeeper, and stays as long away as she can manage, she finds on her return that the two standing together at one of the windows, however friendly, are not yet an engaged couple.

Christmas brings Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley and their children to enliven Hartfield.

Mrs. John Knightley is a pretty, elegant little woman, gentle and quiet, wrapt up in her family—a devoted wife, a doting mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister, that but for those higher ties, a warmer love might have seemed impossible. She has inherited her father’s delicate constitution, is over-careful of her children, has many fears and nerves, and is as fond of her own doctor in town as her father can be of his Mr. Perry.

Mr. John Knightley is tall, gentlemanlike, very clever, a rising barrister. He is domestic and estimable in private life. But he has a cold, dry manner, and he is capable of being sometimes out of humour. He has all the mental clearness and quickness his wife lacks, and he can on occasions act an ungracious, or say a severe thing. He is not a great favourite with his sister-in-law. She is quick in feeling the little injuries to Isabella which Isabella never feels for herself. Perhaps Emma might have passed over more, had his manners been more flattering to Isabella’s sister; but they are only those of a calmly kind brother and friend. However, his chief offence is, now and then, a want of forbearance with Mr. Woodhouse’s peculiarities and fidgetiness. Mr. John Knightley has really a great regard for his father-in-law, but sometimes the younger man cannot resist delivering a rational remonstrance, or a sharp retort equally ill-bestowed. It does not often happen, but it occurs too frequently for Emma’s charity.

Though such collisions do not usually take place early in the Knightleys’ visits, one is brought about on the very evening of John Knightley and his wife’s arrival.

Mr. Woodhouse and Isabella are very happy, expatiating on the merits of a basin of nice, smooth gruel—thin, but not too thin—and exchanging their little valetudinarian confidences, when, unfortunately, a reference is made to Mrs. Knightley’s last sea-bathing experience at Southend, seeing that the two great medical authorities of the father and daughter—Perry and Wingfield—differ on the respective recommendations of Southend and Cromer.

“Southend is an unhealthy place,” Mr. Woodhouse harps. “Perry was surprised to hear you had fixed on Southend.”

“We had all our health perfectly well there,” Isabella defends her side of the question. “Mr. Wingfield says it is entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy. I am sure he may be depended upon, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air. His own brother and family have been there repeatedly.”

“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear,” insists Mr. Woodhouse. “Perry was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the sea-bathing places. Better not move at all, better stay in London altogether, than travel forty miles to get into a worse air. That is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very ill-judged measure.”

John Knightley is able to stand this no longer. “Mr. Perry,” he said, “would do well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. I may be allowed, I hope, the use of my judgment as well as Mr. Perry. I want his directions no more than his drugs.” Then, more coolly, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and five children a distance of a hundred and thirty miles, with no greater expense and inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as willing to prefer Cromer to Southend, as he could be himself.”

“True, true,” said George Knightley, hastily changing the subject, and warding off further danger, as Emma is accustomed to do. Still, Mr. Woodhouse is rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend Perry—to whom he has, in fact, though unconsciously, been attributing many of his own feelings and expressions, Jane Austen adds with a masterly touch—so that it requires all the soothing attentions of his daughters to set him at ease again.

Mr. Knightley of Donwell Abbey had joined the family at dinner. Emma had recognised his right to do so, and she had hoped that they might be friends again, for it was time their disagreement should end. She trusted their nephews and nieces would serve as a bond of union, and help in the peace-making. Accordingly, when he found her with the youngest, a child of eight months, in her arms, though he looked grave, and spoke shortly to begin with, he soon took the child out of her arms, with the unceremoniousness of restored amity.

The conviction gave Emma first satisfaction, and then a temptation to sauciness. It was a comfort they thought alike on their nephews and nieces, she said.

He was not unwilling to renew the old discussions half-banteringly, acquiescing in the mock humility of her assertion that, in their differences, she must always be in the wrong. Yes, and reason good, he said; he was sixteen years old when she was born, and he had the advantage of not being a pretty woman and a spoilt child. But “tell your aunt, little Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old grievances.”

“I only want to know,” said Emma, “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,” Emma made the penitent acknowledgment; “come, shake hands with me.”

This ceremony had just taken place 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 (which has not warmed much in the course of nearly another century), burying under a calmness that seemed all but indifference the real attachment which would have led either of them, if requisite, to do everything for the good of the other.

There could not be a happier creature than Mrs. John Knightley in her visit to Hartfield, going about every morning among her old acquaintances, with her five children, and talking every evening over what she had done with her father and sister.

The animation of the Knightleys’ visit nerves Mr. Woodhouse to the exertion of dining out with them at Randalls; where Mr. and Mrs. Weston consult his comfort in every respect, by fixing an early dinner-hour, and limiting their invited guests to his family and particular set, including the elder Mr. Knightley, Mr. Elton, and Harriet Smith.

The incidents in connection with this dinner-party furnish a strange and unwelcome revelation to Emma’s mind. In the first place, Harriet is attacked by a feverish sore-throat, and cannot form one of the party. Emma considers that Mr. Elton ought to make an excuse to be absent also—in fact, she is so obliging as to furnish him with one. She complains of the coldness of the weather,—wonders how any one would dine out who could help it. She and her father cannot disappoint the Westons, but there is no such obligation on Mr. Elton. She detects some hoarseness in his voice already. With the duties of next day—Sunday—before him, she thinks it would be no more than common prudence in him to stay at home and take care of himself.

Mr. Elton looks as if he did not know what to answer. He is not accustomed to contradict a lady, especially when her anxiety for his welfare is of the most gratifying description. But the next moment, a little to her disgust, Emma hears him accept with alacrity an offer from John Knightley, to secure him from any exposure to the weather by giving him a seat in their carriage.

The second shock to Emma is John Knightley’s hinting that Mr. Elton’s exaggerated efforts to please ladies, culminate in his desire to oblige Emma.

She laughs the idea to scorn; still, as coming from a man of her brother-in-law’s judgment and penetration, it annoys her.

There is additional discomposure in her drive in company with John Knightley and Mr. Elton, while her father and Isabella occupy the other carriage, to Randalls. Mr. Elton is in exasperatingly good spirits, in spite of the tidings which Emma takes care to convey to him, that there is no abatement in Harriet’s indisposition. He outdoes himself in blandness. John Knightley, on the contrary, indulges in a fit of ill-humour at being dragged from the hearth-rug at Hartfield and his children’s company at dessert, and growls in the most approved fashion over the folly of dining out, the whole way between Hartfield and Randalls—Emma being unable to afford him the sedative of “Very true, my love!” which, no doubt, is administered by his usual travelling companion.

Mr. Elton’s happy countenance and solicitous attentions haunt Emma all the evening, spoiling her pleasure, frightening her with the remembrance of John Knightley’s view of the case, which she herself defines as “absurd and insufferable.” In the drawing-room she is still farther offended by Mr. Elton’s asking her to promise him not to expose herself to infection in visiting Harriet Smith, and calling upon Mrs. Weston to support him in his entreaty. “So scrupulous for others, so careless of herself. She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home to-day, and yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore-throat herself? Is that fair, Mrs. Weston? Judge between us.” Well might Mrs. Weston look surprised, and Emma feel too much provoked to be able to answer him.

John Knightley comes into the room with a cool report that it is snowing hard, and a caustic congratulation of poor Mr. Woodhouse’s spirit in venturing out with his carriage and horses in such weather.

Jolly Mr. Weston wishes that the roads may become impassable, to keep them all at Randalls.

Mr. Woodhouse and his elder daughter are in consternation. How can the chronic invalid face being overturned on the common, or the fond mother consent to be blocked up, for days and nights, from her children? (The country roads of last century were less trustworthy than those of to-day.)

Helpful George Knightley comes back from walking down the sweep and along Highbury Road, with the comforting assurance that matters are not nearly so bad as his brother and Mr. Weston have supposed. In some cases the ground is hardly white, and both of the coachmen agree there is no real difficulty.

Everybody is in a hurry to get off, and by John Knightley’s forgetfulness in following his wife into her father’s carriage, Emma finds herself, to her dismay, in the Knightleys’ carriage, alone with Mr. Elton. She believes that he has drunk too much of the Westons’ good wine,[51] and will want to talk nonsense. To restrain him, she prepares to speak with exquisite calmness of the weather; but scarcely has she begun, scarcely have they passed the gate, when she finds Mr. Elton actually and unmistakably making violent love to her.

Emma clings to the refuge of thinking her companion half intoxicated; disgraceful as the excuse is—above all in a clergyman—it was not altogether unwarranted by the lax practices of the time.

But Mr. Elton has only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at all to confuse his intellect. Emma, in her trepidation and vexation, strives to parry his addresses and to recall him to his senses, by an attempt at playful reproach. “I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to me! You take me for my friend. Any message to Miss Smith I shall be happy to deliver.”

But Mr. Elton repeats, with undaunted assurance and a great show of amazement, “Message to Miss Smith!” what can she possibly mean?

“Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct,” cries the distressed Emma. “You are not yourself; say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it.”

Far from it, Mr. Elton resumes the subject of his passion, and presses for a favourable answer.

As Emma’s notion of his inebriety yields to a conviction of his inconsistency and presumption, she speaks with fewer struggles for politeness; but her indignation is principally directed against what she declares is the contrast between his behaviour to Miss Smith during the last month—what she has herself witnessed, of his daily attentions,—and his present most unwarrantable profession of love to herself, which is far, indeed, from affording her gratification.

“Good Heavens!” cries Mr. Elton, “what can be the meaning of this? Miss Smith—I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my existence; never paid her any attentions but as your friend; never cared whether she were dead or alive but as your friend.”

This is plain speaking from the compliment-paying Mr. Elton; but worse is to come.

“Miss Smith, indeed! Oh! Miss Woodhouse, who can think of Miss Smith when Miss Woodhouse is near? No!” in accents meant to be insinuating, “I am sure you have seen and understood me.”

It has all been a miserable mistake, in the course of which Emma has not only grossly misled poor, foolish little Harriet, Emma has also fed with false hopes the conceit and interested motives—rather than the honest regard—of a vain, ambitious man, who has been seeking wealth and worldly position as the first recommendations in a wife.

Emma is struck dumb, and when she says nothing her silence is still farther misinterpreted.

“Charming Miss Woodhouse, allow me to interpret this interesting silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.”

Then Emma finds her voice: “No, sir, it confesses no such thing.”

She tells him again in no measured terms how completely she has misunderstood him. Shaken and staggered as she is by his behaviour, she still goes back to her persuasion of his attachment to Miss Smith. Does he mean to say he has never thought seriously of her?

“Never,” cries Elton, affronted in his turn. “I think seriously of Miss Smith! Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl, and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well, and, no doubt, there are men who would not object to——Everybody has their own level; but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss, I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith.”

The smallness of Mr. Elton’s nature is betrayed in his manner of speaking of Harriet at this time, as well as in many of his subsequent actions. He is not a fool—at least, not where men are concerned, like Mr. Collins in “Pride and Prejudice.” Mr. Elton is altogether a better-bred man. But in this last specimen of a clergyman who is at once a coxcomb and a fortune-hunter, Jane Austen deals another blow at parsonolatry. One must think of Henry Tilney, Edward Ferrars, and Edmund Bertram, to understand how heartily she respected her father’s cloth when it was worthily worn.

Mr. Elton is almost as obstinate as Emma, and hardly more flattering in reminding her of the encouragement he has received.

“Encouragement!” cries Emma, insulted by the word. “I gave you no encouragement, sir; you have been entirely mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common acquaintance.”

“He was too angry to say another word, her manner too decided to invite supplication, and in this state of swelling resentment and mutually deep mortification they had to continue together a few minutes longer, for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot pace. If there had not been so much anger there would have been desperate awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage turned into Vicarage Lane or when it stopped, they found themselves, all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another syllable passed. Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and under indescribable irritation of spirits she was then conveyed to Hartfield.”

It is a wretched business, Emma decides when she has retired for the night, and her maid has curled her hair—in those days of curls—and she is left alone with full opportunity for the unpleasant operation of thinking. Such a blow for Harriet! That is the worst of all. Emma’s conscience and heart are in the right place, though her wilfulness and self-confidence may carry her away; so her first thought is, “If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne anything. He might have doubled his presumption to me—but poor Harriet!”

Emma cannot spare any pity for Mr. Elton’s disappointment. She has never been personally vain, as George Knightley noted, and she is shrewd enough to comprehend the kind of attraction of Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield, and her thirty thousand pounds, to Mr. Elton, the vicar of Highbury, without any connections to speak of, with only a moderate income, and nothing but his situation and civility to recommend him. She feels inclined at first to accuse him of double dealing in his manner towards Harriet and herself; and it is hard for her to be dislodged from the most sincere conviction that she has lent his forward advances to intimacy with herself, and his delusion as to her partiality to him, no encouragement.

But Emma’s honesty is too great for her and her present peace. On looking back, she cannot help seeing how many incidents in connection with the miniature, his charade, &c., might have had a double significance. How far her own fancy had coloured looks and words; how much the wish had been father to the thought! Then, when she passes in review before her, her own constant invitations to Mr. Elton—the complaisance with which she treated all he said and did—her furbished-up apology for entering the vicarage, she blushes with shame at the misconstruction he might have put on such behaviour, and the sufficient though mistaken warrant she had afforded for such misconstruction. She heartily repents what she has done, wishes she had submitted to be warned by Mr. Knightley—almost wishes she had consented to Harriet’s marriage with Robert Martin.

It is a great relief to Emma when, by the time the snow-storm has ended, and Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley have returned to London, a ceremonious note comes from Mr. Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, announcing that he is about to comply with the pressing entreaties of some friends to pass a few weeks in Bath. His absence could not be better timed, and the unpleasant task of breaking to Harriet Smith his defection—or, rather, the worse explanation that he has never been her suitor—will be got over before he comes back. Emma is fain to trust that Harriet has not a retentive nature, and will soon forget her imaginary lover. But the match-maker is punished by Harriet’s very meekness and uncomplainingness under the double injury—though it is some time before Emma recognises in her friend the weak tenacity of a nature which is feeble in its gentleness and guilelessness.

II.

Jane Fairfax enters presently on the scene. Jane is the grand-daughter of the old vicar, the daughter of a young officer who fell in action, and whose wife did not survive her loss. Their little child had been committed to the care of her affectionate grandmother and aunt, who, however, could only have afforded her the most slender advantages in the way of education, had a compassionate fellow-officer of her late father not stepped forward, and taken the little girl to be educated with his own daughter. Jane’s home from childhood to womanhood has, therefore, been with the family of Colonel Campbell, and she has only returned at intervals to visit her relatives, Mrs. and Miss Bates, at Highbury.

The intention had been that the unprovided-for girl should be trained to render herself independent by teaching. But her friends shrank from anticipating what Jane Austen calls “the evil of Jane Fairfax’s going out into the world to earn her bread.” Farther on in the book, the author expresses still more decidedly, through her heroine, her pity for a woman in Jane Fairfax’s position. These were the settled opinions of gentlewomen in Jane Austen’s generation. We cannot now regard them as either very liberal or very wholesome, in the light of what has been developed of womanly independence, usefulness, courage, and cheerfulness. Most people of native spirit and intelligence, whatever their grade, would now be disposed to regard Jane Fairfax’s position, after she was grown up, in Colonel Campbell’s family—however good and kind they might be—as more detrimental to Jane’s self-respect, more disparaging in the eyes of others, more trying in every way, than encountering the ordeal of working for herself among comparative strangers.

Another—what I must call weakness and prejudice of the gifted writer, is visible here and elsewhere. In dwelling on the superior cultivation and refinement of the more intelligent and polished society which Jane Fairfax shared, while she resided in the London house of a man of good position and large income, to what she must have submitted to in the village of Highbury, in the house of her excellent but poorly-educated grandmother and aunt, whose narrow means are in keeping with their confined interests, I think Jane Austen’s aristocratic bias carries her too far in the line of mere superficial advantages. True culture is not so dependent on rank and wealth; and culture, though something, is hardly of such importance as she makes it. A rough diamond is a great deal better worth than a polished pebble. But Jane Fairfax is the diamond, not the pebble; so that polish is not wasted on her. She has a very pleasing person, a good understanding, and, what is more to the purpose, an excellent heart, which is not injured by her undesirable circumstances. She does not learn to despise and undervalue Highbury or her homely kindred, in London, among her influential friends. She is a sort of heroine in Highbury, when she comes there on her periodical visits.

Jane Austen gives Emma Woodhouse’s impression of Jane Fairfax, when Emma sees Jane, after two years’ absence. Jane is very elegant, remarkably elegant (an exploded term of commendation often used by Jane Austen, when she desires to impress on her readers somebody’s special grace and refinement); and Emma has herself the highest value for elegance. “Her height was pretty, just such as almost everybody would think tall; her figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium between fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and then her face, her features—there was more beauty in them altogether than she had remembered: it was not regular, but it was very pleasing beauty. Her eyes—a deep grey, with dark eyelashes and eyebrows—had never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to cavil at as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty of which elegance was the reigning character, and as such she must in honour, by all her principles, admire it; elegance of which, whether of person or mind, she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar was distinction and merit.”

Yet Emma has no inclination, or only the most fleeting disposition, to cultivate Jane’s friendship. The fact is, the two girls, of the same age, have all their lives been held up to each other as most desirable companions and friends, until human nature, in its waywardness, has rebelled against the obligation.

George Knightley has told Emma very frankly that she does not like Jane Fairfax, because Emma sees in her the really accomplished young woman that Emma wishes to be herself, but that she has not the self-denial and perseverance to become actually. Emma, in her best and most candid moments, is driven to own there is some truth in this accusation. At other times she defends her bad taste in preferring Harriet Smith as a friend, by asserting that she—Emma—can never get acquainted with Jane Fairfax. “She did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve, such apparent indifference whether she pleased or not; and then her aunt was such an eternal talker! and she was made such a fuss with by everybody; and it was always imagined that they were to be so intimate; because their ages were the same, everybody had supposed they must be so fond of each other.”

In the meantime Miss Campbell, with whom Jane had been brought up, though inferior to her friend both in beauty and accomplishments, has, as Jane Austen says, “by that luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs,” engaged the affections and married happily, after a short acquaintance, a Mr. Dixon, a young, agreeable, and rich man.

Jane Fairfax is one-and-twenty, the age at which she had fixed, in her own mind, on beginning her career as a governess. The following are the strong terms in which the author refers to the step about to be taken:—“With the fortitude of a devoted noviciate, she had resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.” Surely this is exaggerated language, even for the last century, and reflects painfully both on the footing which governesses occupied, and on the qualifications deemed essential to gentlewomen, among our mothers and grandmothers. There is also an inconsistency in it where this tale is concerned, and one perceives that Jane Austen’s rooted class prejudices cause even so wise a woman to contradict herself; for in the beginning of the book we have an evident indication how much respected and liked Mrs. Weston had been when, as Miss Taylor, she had filled the post of governess to Emma Woodhouse. No relations in the story are happier and pleasanter than those which are involved in the warm and lasting friendship between the two who had been formerly teacher and pupil. Why might not Jane Fairfax have looked forward to being another Miss Taylor?

Colonel and Mrs. Campbell’s good sense had led them to acquiesce in Jane Fairfax’s determination, loth as they were to lose her company, and it was only because she had not been quite well, or in equal spirits for some time, that they had used their influence to induce her not to enter immediately on her arduous duties, but to spend the last three months of her liberty with her fond grandmother and aunt in Janet’s native air, while the Campbells paid their first visit to their married daughter settled in Ireland.

Emma heard the first, not very welcome news of Jane Fairfax’s coming, as she sought to get rid of Harriet Smith’s dolefulness, and at the same time to do an irksome duty by taking Harriet to call at the Bateses. Mrs. and Miss Bates loved to be called on, and Emma knew she was “considered by the very few who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of their scanty comforts.”

“She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley, and some from her own heart, as to her deficiency, but none were equal to counteract the persuasion of its being very disagreeable—a waste of time—tiresome women—and all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second and third rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore she seldom went near them.” But now she made the sudden resolution of not passing their door without going in, observing, as she proposed it to Harriet, that as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.

“The house belonged to people in business; Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment which was everything to them, the visitors were most cordially and even gratefully welcomed; the quiet, neat old lady, who, with her knitting, was seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to Miss Woodhouse; and her more active, talking daughter almost ready to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse’s health, cheerful communications about her mother’s, and sweet cake from the buffet.”

Emma had argued without her host, as she soon hears from Miss Bates, who prattles with the delightful abandon of the most innocent, unsuspicious heart, in company with the most honest thick head in the world. She rambles, breaks off, diverges right and left in her monologues, as only a very talkative, simple-minded, elderly woman—a Mrs. Nickleby or a Miss Bates—can wander, pull herself up, and start afresh in her conversation. Miss Bates has only just finished reading a letter from her niece to a previous visitor, and, of course, mentions what she has been about.

“Emma’s politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest, ‘Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I hope she is well?’”

“‘Thank you, you are so kind!’ replied the happily-deceived aunt, while eagerly hunting for the letter. ‘Oh, here it is! I was sure it could not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs. Cole, and since she went away I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to her—a letter from Jane—that she can never hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only put under my huswife; and since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she says——But first of all I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter, only two pages you see, hardly two, and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often says, when the letter is first opened, “Well, Hetty, now I think you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work”—don’t you, ma’am? And then I tell her I am sure she would contrive to make it out for herself, if she had nobody to do it for her, every word of it. I am sure she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed, though my mother’s eyes are not so good as they were, she can see amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such a blessing! My mother’s are really very good indeed. Jane often says when she is here, ‘I am sure, grandmamma, you must have had very strong eyes to see as you do, and so much fine work as you have done too! I only wish my eyes may last me as well.’

“All this spoken extremely fast, obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath; and Emma said something civil about the excellence of Miss Fairfax’s handwriting.

“‘You are extremely kind,’ replied Miss Bates, highly gratified, ‘you who are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is nobody’s praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse’s. My mother does not hear, she is a little deaf, you know. Ma’am,’ addressing her, ‘do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging as to say about Jane’s handwriting?’

“And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was pondering in the meanwhile upon the possibility, without seeming very rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax’s letter, and had almost resolved on hurrying away directly, under some slight excuse, when Miss Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.

“‘My mother’s deafness is very trifling, you see, just nothing at all. By only raising my voice, and saying anything two or three times over, she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me. Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmamma at all deafer than she was two years ago, which is saying a great deal at my mother’s time of life; and it really is full two years, you know, since she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her now.’

“‘Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?’

“‘Oh, yes, next week.’

“‘Indeed! That must be a very great pleasure.’

“‘Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Everybody is so surprised; and everybody says the same obliging things. I am sure she will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury as they can be to see her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Colonel Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very good of him to send her the whole way. But they always do, you know. Oh, yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the common course, we should not have heard from her before Tuesday or Wednesday.’

“‘Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my hearing anything of Miss Fairfax to-day.’[52]

“‘So obliging of you!’ the kindly soul took the words in good faith, and surely smote Emma’s better nature. ‘No, we should not have heard, if it had not been for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My mother is so delighted, for she is to be three months with us, at least. Three months, she says so positively, as I am going to have the pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the summer, but she is so impatient to see them again; for, till she married last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must make it very strange to be—in different kingdoms, I was going to say, but, however, different countries; and so she wrote a very urgent letter to her mother, or her father—I declare I do not know which it was, but we shall see presently in Jane’s letter—wrote in Mr. Dixon’s name as well as her own, to press their coming over directly; and they would give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country-seat—Ballycraig—a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great deal of its beauty—from Mr. Dixon, I mean; I do not know that she has ever heard about it from anybody else; but it was very natural, you know, that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his addresses, and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them—for Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter’s not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all blame them—of course she heard everything he might be telling Miss Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word that he had shown them some drawings of the place—views that he had taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane was quite longing to go to Ireland from his account of things.’

“At this moment an ingenious and animating idea entering Emma’s brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of further discovery—‘You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.’

“‘Very true; very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a distance from us for months together—not able to come if anything was to happen; but you see everything turns out for the best. They want her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind and pressing than their joint invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently. Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit—I can never think of it without trembling—but ever since we had the history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!’

“‘But in spite of all her friend’s urgency, and her own wish of seeing Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting her time to you and Mrs. Bates?’

“‘Yes—entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should recommend; and, indeed, they particularly wish her to try her native air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately.’”

The idea which has entered into Emma’s idle, fertile brain, is that Mr. Dixon, while paying his addresses to the well-endowed Miss Campbell, may in his secret heart have preferred her portionless friend; that there may also have been an unfortunate hidden attachment on Jane Fairfax’s part—one result of which is her disinclination to visit the Dixons.

Altogether, Emma’s notion is neither very sensible nor charitable. But sensible and amiable conclusions are not always to be expected from spoilt girls, who, with rather an overweening opinion of their own deserts, are not altogether indisposed to find fault with the alleged perfections of threatened rivals. My readers will long ago have discovered that caution and prudence are not Emma Woodhouse’s strong points. Emma guesses as much herself, and on that very account is the more tempted to take a naughty pleasure in detecting undreamt of follies in that model of discretion—Jane Fairfax. But it is only by degrees that Emma is led on to the serious offence against fairness and kindness, of attributing anything more dishonourable than a rash, ill-judged bestowal of her affections, to Jane Fairfax.

When Emma and Jane first meet again on the occasion of Jane’s three months’ visit to Highbury, Emma is shaken for a moment, in her unreasonable dislike and unjustifiable fancies, till the old influences begin anew to work. Miss Bates is more tiresome than ever in her anxiety about her niece’s health. It is affectation in Jane to praise Emma’s playing on the piano,[53] when her own is so superior; worst of all, Jane Fairfax is so cold and reserved in her perfect good breeding—if anything more reserved on the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than on any other, and Emma believes she knows how to explain this caution.

But neither is Jane Fairfax communicative on another topic which is of the deepest interest to all Highbury, including even Emma Woodhouse, who considers herself above local gossip in general. Jane Fairfax had met Mr. Weston’s son, Frank Churchill, at Weymouth, but not a syllable of real information can Emma get from her as to what he is like. “Is he handsome?” She believes he is reckoned a very fine young man. “Is he agreeable?” “He is generally thought so.” “Does he appear a sensible young man? a young man of information?” “At a watering-place, or in a common London acquaintance, it is difficult to decide on such points.”

Emma cannot forgive Jane Fairfax.

For Emma Woodhouse has a double source of interest in Frank Churchill. He is her friend, Mrs. Weston’s unknown step-son, who has indeed written her “a very handsome letter,” on her marriage with his father, but has not yet shown her the attention of coming to Randalls. He is kept away, his friends agree, by the tyrannical whims of the aunt who adopted him.

Emma with her lively penetration has also seen, and that not with displeasure, in spite of her protest against marriage for herself, that Mr. and Mrs. Weston have fixed on her, as far as they can have any choice in the matter, for Frank’s wife—nay, that all Highbury look on them as a predestined happy couple. Everything is so suitable—age, good looks, agreeable qualities, position, fortune. Emma does not deny these recommendations. No wonder she is curious to hear more of Frank Churchill.

Highbury is suddenly excited by the announcement of the approaching marriage of Mr. Elton, who has improved his time in Bath, and only returned to proclaim his happiness and prepare for his bride.

Emma is bent, as part of her atonement, on breaking the news to Harriet Smith, when Harriet comes in heated and agitated, crying “Oh, Miss Woodhouse, what do you think has happened?”

The blow has fallen already, Emma is sure, and prepares to bestow all the kindness that is due from her.

But the susceptible Harriet is occupied with quite another train of ideas. She has been shopping in Ford the linendraper’s, when who should come in but Elizabeth Martin and her brother, the first time Harriet has met them since she refused young Martin. She thought she would have fainted. The sister had seen her directly, and looked another way. When the brother found her out, there was a little whispering, and Harriet had guessed he was persuading his sister to go up to her and speak to her as usual. She had been in such a tremble; but she had seen that the Martins, especially the brother, had tried to behave with the old kindness and friendliness. Poor little Harriet had been conscience-stricken, yet comforted by his good nature.

It is in the middle of this comical counter-current of distress, which at last swells high enough to provoke and alarm Emma, that in order to put the Martins out of Harriet’s silly, vacillating head, her friend, in a hurry, and not at all with the tender care she had intended, tells the girl of Mr. Elton’s prospects. And the shock revives Mr. Elton’s supremacy.

The future Mrs. Elton is a Miss Hawkins, who is said to be handsome, elegant, highly accomplished, perfectly amiable, and the possessor of ten thousand pounds. No wonder Mr. Elton is triumphant in the abundant consolation which has come to him.

Emma, while satisfied that a Mrs. Elton will be a relief and an aid in renewing her intercourse with the vicar, and while too indifferent on the subject to think much of the lady, has this sop for her mortification on Harriet’s account, that though, doubtless, good enough for Mr. Elton and Highbury, there is no superiority of connexion on Miss Hawkins’ side. She brings no name, no blood, no alliance. She is the younger daughter of a Bristol merchant. “All the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was very well married, to a gentleman in a great way, near Bristol, who kept two carriages. That was the wind-up of the history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.”

From these reflections, we may judge that Emma has more than a tinge of Mr. Darcy’s pride and superciliousness. Was Jane Austen herself entirely free from the same defects? We are all fallible mortals.

Harriet Smith, easily carried captive by public opinion, now hears so much of Mr. Elton in every house she enters, and is so impressed by the gifts, graces, and happiness of the bride, that she would have been in a fair way to break her heart over her disappointment, had it not been for the diversion caused by a slight revival of her intercourse with the Martins. Under the influence of Robert Martin’s good feeling, his sister has called again for Harriet; and Emma is sufficiently shrewd to comprehend the danger of a heart’s being caught on the rebound. She takes care to regulate Harriet’s return of this civility. She herself carries Harriet in the Hartfield carriage to Abbey Mill Farm,[54] and pays a visit to an old servant while Harriet makes her call, which is thus abridged to a quarter of an hour’s length. Harriet’s account of it is rather a sad one. Mrs. Martin and the girls have been as uncomfortable as their visitor; and just when they were becoming more cordial, in consequence of somebody saying that Harriet was grown, when the whole party could not help looking at the wainscot by the window, where the different heights of all the girls stood as they had been noted by him last summer, the Hartfield carriage was announced. That was enough; the style and the shortness of the visit could not be mistaken. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom Harriet had thankfully passed six weeks, not six months ago!

Though Emma has contrived it all, she has the grace to feel it is a bad business, and would have given a great deal to have had the Martins in a higher rank of life.

It is some comfort to Emma to hear that Frank Churchill is at last coming to Randalls, to stay a whole fortnight. His father brings him at once to the Woodhouses; and the young man is, as nearly as possible, all that Emma’s fancy had painted him—handsome, gentlemanlike, lively, eager to be pleased, and by no means unwilling to admire, and show that he admires, Emma Woodhouse.

After he has won her good-will by his warm praises of his stepmother, and contrived in complimenting Mrs. Weston to compliment Emma, she begins to wonder if he, too, is aware of what their friends expect from their knowing each other, and whether his merry compliments are signs of acquiescence or defiance. As for herself, she must wait and know him better before she has any opinion on the subject; but the first impression is greatly in his favour.

Mr. Weston has business at the Crown Inn, and his son asks carelessly if there is a family named Fairfax—no, he believes the name is Barnes, or Bates—living near, as he has a call to make on them. There had been that degree of acquaintance between him and one of the members of the family, when living at Weymouth, which requires such an attention, and it may be as well shown then as afterwards.

To be sure, his father knows the Bateses and Miss Fairfax; let Frank call upon her by all means.

Any day will do, the young man explains; there is no particular necessity for calling that morning.

But Mr. Weston decides promptly that the mark of respect ought to be shown at once. Frank had met Jane Fairfax at the Campbells, where she was everybody’s equal; here she is with a poor old grandmother who has barely enough to live on. If he does not call early it will be a slight. And the young man allows himself to be convinced.

Mrs. Weston, in her turn, brings Frank Churchill—with whom she is on the happiest terms—the following day; and Emma walks and shops with them in Highbury. She is on such an easy footing with the young fellow already as to inquire about his visit of the previous morning.

He thanks Emma for her preparatory hint about the talkative aunt, who would otherwise have been the death of him. As it was, she entangled him into a visit of three-quarters of an hour’s length, when he had only meant to stay ten minutes.

Emma asks how he thinks Miss Fairfax is looking?

Ill, very ill, he tells her, that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look ill, and Miss Fairfax is naturally so pale as almost to give the appearance of bad health—a most deplorable want of complexion.

Emma defends Jane Fairfax’s soft, delicate skin from the accusation of having a sickly hue; but her companion only makes the defence adroitly into an opportunity for professing his preference for “a fine glow of health.”

Still Emma insists he must admire Miss Fairfax in spite of her complexion.

But he only shakes his head, laughs, and says he cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her complexion.

Emma is curious to know how much he had known of Jane Fairfax at Weymouth.

But when he first leaves the question unanswered, because he must go into a shop and show himself a citizen of Highbury by buying something, and then asserts it is always a lady’s right to decide on the degree of acquaintance, she has to inform him he is as discreet as Miss Fairfax herself.

After all, he is not unwilling to return to the subject, and talk of Miss Fairfax and her piano-playing; and Emma is as foolishly elated as a child, by a chance admission of his, which seems to confirm her former conclusion. Frank Churchill has proclaimed his own inability to judge Miss Fairfax’s musical powers, but added that a gentleman who was a musical man would never ask the young lady to whom he was engaged to sit down to “the instrument,” if Miss Fairfax could sit down instead. The next moment Frank has to admit that the gentleman was Mr. Dixon, and the lady, to whom he was on the point of marriage, Miss Campbell.

Emma, in her amusement at the corroboration of her suspicions, does not attempt to conceal her inference from what her companion has said. Poor Mrs. Dixon! As to Miss Fairfax, she must have felt the improper and dangerous distinction.

Frank Churchill hesitates a little. “There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them;” but the next moment he owns that it is impossible for him to tell how it might have been behind the scenes, and leaves Emma to suppose what she likes.

Emma’s good opinion of Frank Churchill is in some danger of being nipped in the bud, when she hears that he has gone off to London merely to have his hair cut. A sudden freak seems to have seized him at breakfast, and he has sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner; but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut. There is no harm in his travelling sixteen miles on such an errand, but there is an air of foppery and nonsense in it which Emma cannot approve.

His father only calls him a coxcomb; but Mrs. Weston passes the matter over as quietly as possible, and Mr. Knightley, when informed of the expedition, is heard to mutter over his newspaper, “Hum! just the trifling, silly fellow I took him for.”

Frank Churchill comes back punctually. He has got his hair cut, and he laughs at himself with a good grace, but without seeming really ashamed of what he has done.

At a dinner-party in the neighbourhood, Emma receives a very interesting addition to the little history she has made out for Jane Fairfax. A fine piano from Broadwood’s has arrived at the Bateses’, to the great astonishment of the family, who have at length come to the conclusion that it is one of Colonel Campbell’s kind gifts.

But why should Colonel Campbell present Jane Fairfax with a piano at this late date, and in this mysterious manner? Emma, on the first opportunity, taxes Frank Churchill with sharing her thoughts on the subject. The piano has not come from the Campbells; it might have come from the Dixons, from Mr. as well as Mrs. Dixon; and then Emma is so foolish and wrong as to repeat to Frank Churchill all her suspicions of Mr. Dixon’s secret preference for Jane, and Jane’s response to that preference, without, however, for a moment impugning the good intentions and principles of either.

He hears it all with the greatest gravity, and fully acknowledges the probability of her version of the gift. He is ready to be guided by her greater penetration. He did see in it at first only a mark of paternal kindness from Colonel Campbell; but when she mentioned Mrs. Dixon, he has felt how much more likely it is that the piano should be the tribute of warm female friendship; and now he can regard it in no other light than as an offering of love.

Oh! mischievous, thoughtless Frank, and credulous, confident Emma!

Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax, Harriet Smith, and other less important guests, join the party in the evening. Jane looks superior to all the others; still Emma can affectionately rejoice in the blooming sweetness and artless manner of her friend, with regard to whom it could never have been guessed how many tears she had been shedding lately. For “to be in company nicely dressed herself, and seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile, and look pretty, and say nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour.”

When the gentlemen join the ladies in the drawing-room, Frank Churchill immediately seeks out Emma, and enters into an animated conversation with her, devoting himself to her.

Once, indeed, she notices him looking intently across the room at Miss Fairfax. “What is the matter?” Emma asks.

He starts. “Thank you for rousing me,” he replies; “I believe I have been very rude; but really, Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a way that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw anything so outré. Those curls! I see nobody else looking like her. I must go and ask whether it is an Irish fashion—shall I? Yes, I will; I declare I will, and you shall see how she likes it—whether she colours.”

He is gone immediately, and Emma soon sees him standing before Miss Fairfax and talking to her; but as to the effect of his conversation, he has placed himself inadvertently exactly between her and Emma, so that the latter can distinguish nothing.

Mrs. Weston tells Emma that Mr. Knightley’s carriage—for the use of which on this occasion, Emma, who stands up for proper dignity, had already complimented him—brought over Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax, and is to take them home again.

Both Mrs. Weston and her old pupil are agreed in their praise of Mr. Knightley’s consideration and kindness. But when Mrs. Weston suggests another motive, and says Emma has infected her, for she has made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax, the listener bursts forth into vehement opposition. How can Mrs. Weston think of such a thing! Mr. Knightley must not marry. Emma cannot have little Henry, her nephew, cut out of Donwell. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey! No, no! Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. Mrs. Weston is not to put it in his head. He is as happy as possible by himself, with his farm, and his sheep, and his library, and all the parish to manage. And he is extremely fond of his brother’s children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up his time or his heart.

Mrs. Weston is accustomed to Emma’s ebullitions. The elder lady contents herself with reminding her companion that if the gentleman really loves Jane Fairfax——

“Nonsense,” Emma interrupts the speaker hotly. “He does not care about Jane Fairfax in the way of love; I am sure he does not.”

Emma goes on to protest in extravagant terms that it would be a shameful, degrading connexion to have Miss Bates haunting the Abbey, thanking him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane, and then flying off through half a sentence to her mother’s old petticoat, not that it was such a very old petticoat either.

“For shame, Emma!” Mrs. Weston cries out at being diverted against her conscience; and she will not resign her fancy. She has heard Mr. Knightley speak so very highly of Jane Fairfax. He is so concerned for her welfare. He is such an admirer of her music. What if he and not the Campbells prove the donor of the piano?

Emma, too, remains unconvinced, and as indignant as unconvinced. Mrs. Weston takes up ideas and runs away with them, as she has many a time reproached Emma for doing. She believes nothing of the kind of the piano. Only absolute proof will convince her that Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax.

In the interest of the argument, Emma has lost sight of Frank Churchill, beyond the fact that he had found a seat next Miss Fairfax. Presently, however, he comes over to join their host in pressing Miss Woodhouse—the young lady of most consequence at the party—to play and sing.

Emma complies, only attempting what she can accomplish with credit. She is agreeably surprised by having Frank Churchill volunteer a pleasant second. He has all the praise usual on such occasions, and the two sing together again to their mutual satisfaction and that of the company.

Emma, conscious that she is to be far outstripped, resigns her place to Jane Fairfax. Frank Churchill sings with her also. It seems that they have sung together at Weymouth; but Emma cannot attend to them for the sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive of the listeners. Her objections to his marriage crowd into her mind and supersede every other thought. It would be a great disappointment to her brother, and consequently to her sister, a real injury to the children, a mortifying change to all. For herself she cannot endure the prospect. A Mrs. Knightley for them all to give way to! No, Mr. Knightley must never marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell.

Mr. Knightley looks round, and comes and sits by Emma. She tries him in various ways. His admiration of the music is warm, but except for Mrs. Weston’s words would not have struck her. He cuts short her allusion to his kindness in reference to the carriage, but then he will never dwell on any kindness of his own. Above all he speaks with perfect calmness, and a shade of consolatory disapprobation, on the great topic of the evening, the gift of the piano. It was kindly given, but the Campbells would have done better to have announced their intention. Surprises are foolish things. He should have expected better judgment from Colonel Campbell.

From that moment Emma could have taken her oath Mr. Knightley had nothing to do with the present.

Jane Fairfax’s voice grows husky.

“That will do,” said Mr. Knightley, aloud. “You have sung quite enough for one evening.”

The inconsiderate audience beg for another song; and Frank Churchill is heard saying, “I think you could manage this without effort.”

Mr. Knightley now grows angry. “That fellow thinks of nothing but showing off his own voice. This must not be;” and he calls on Miss Bates to interfere.

The singing is put an end to, as there are no other young lady performers, but a dance is got up.

Mrs. Weston, capital in her country dances, takes her place at the piano.

Frank Churchill, with most becoming gallantry, secures Emma’s hand, and takes her to her place at the top of the set.

Emma is nothing loth, but she cannot help watching Mr. Knightley. He is no dancer in general; if he is now alert in seeking Jane Fairfax as a partner, the sign will be ominous. But no, he continues talking to his hostess, and looks on unconcernedly while Jane is claimed by some other.

Emma has no longer any alarm for Henry; his interests are yet safe; and she leads off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than five couples can be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of it make it very delightful, and she finds herself well matched in a partner. They are a couple worth looking at.

Two dances, unfortunately, are all that can be allowed. It is growing late, and Miss Bates becomes anxious to get home, on her mother’s account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again, they are obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.

“Perhaps it is as well,” said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to her carriage. “I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing would not have agreed with me, after yours.”

Emma had gone next day to shop with Harriet Smith at the Highbury linendraper’s. Shopping with Harriet was no easy matter, when it involved convincing Harriet that if she wanted a plain muslin it was of no use to look at a figured; and that a blue riband, be it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern.

Already the young ladies have encountered Frank Churchill and Mrs. Weston at the door of the Bateses’ house, opposite. Mrs. Weston is there, in performance of a promise she had forgotten, but of which her stepson had reminded her, that she should go and hear the newly-imported “instrument.”

Frank Churchill has attempted to get off from accompanying Mrs. Weston after he met Emma, and she refused to be one of the party. The matter has ended in Mrs. Weston’s carrying off Frank Churchill, according to their original intention, and the girls making their purchases at Ford’s. But in a few moments Miss Bates and Mrs. Weston come over together, and entreat Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith to join the others, and give their opinion of the piano.

Miss Bates pours forth one of the most amusing of her effusions.

“I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are——” began Emma.

“Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well; and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse? I am so glad to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here. ‘Oh, then,’ said I, ‘I must run across. I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me just to run across, and entreat her to come in. My mother will be so very happy to see her; and now we are such a nice party, she cannot refuse.’ ‘Aye, pray do,’ said Mr. Frank Churchill, ‘Miss Woodhouse’s opinion of the instrument will be worth having.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘I shall be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.’ ‘Oh!’ said he, ‘wait half a minute, till I have finished my job,’ for, would you believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother’s spectacles. The rivet came out, you know, this morning; so very obliging!—for my mother had no use of her spectacles, could not put them on, and, by-the-bye, everybody ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should, indeed, Jane said so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders, the first thing I did, but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing, and then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time, Patty came to say she thought the kitchen-chimney wanted sweeping. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘Patty, do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your mistress’s spectacles out.’ Then the baked apples came home. Mrs. Wallis sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the Wallises, always. I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be uncivil, and give a very rude answer; but we have never known anything but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know? only three of us. Besides, dear Jane at present—and she really eats nothing—makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats; so I say one thing, and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before. I have so often heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only way Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these ladies will oblige us.”

Emma would be very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates; and they did at last move out of the shop, with no further delay from Miss Bates than “How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon; I did not see you before. I hear you have a charming collection of new ribands from town. Jane came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye! the gloves do very well, only a little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”

“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in the street.

Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.

“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of. Oh, my mother’s spectacles! So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! ‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind excessively;’ which, you know, showed him to be so very——Indeed, I must say, that much as I have heard of him before, and much as I had expected, he far exceeds anything—I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, most warmly. He seems everything the fondest parent could——‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I can fasten that rivet; I like a job of that kind excessively.’ I never shall forget his manner; and when I brought out the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very obliging as to take some, ‘Oh,’ said he directly, ‘there is nothing in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’ That, you know, was so very——and I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed, they are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice, only we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us promise to have them done three times; but Miss Woodhouse will be so good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell—some of Mr. Knightley’s most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year, and certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his trees—I believe there are two of them. My mother says the orchard was always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite struck the other day, for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating these apples, and we talked about them, and said how much she enjoyed them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. ‘I am sure you must be,’ said he, ‘and I will send you another supply, for I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more before they get good for nothing.’ So I begged he would not—for really, as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great many left—it was but half a dozen, indeed—but they should all be kept for Jane, and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more, so liberal as he had been already, and Jane said the same; and when he was gone she almost quarrelled with me—no, I should not say quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives, but she was quite distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished I had made him believe we had a great many left. ‘Oh,’ said I, ‘my dear, I did say as much as I could.’ However, the very same evening William Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down and spoke to William Larkins, and said everything, as you may suppose. William Larkins is such an old acquaintance, I am always glad to see him. But, however, I found out afterwards from Patty that William said it was all the apples of that sort his master had; he had brought them all, and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had sold so many—for William, you know, thinks more of his master’s profit than anything—but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid her not mind it, and be sure not to say anything to us about it, for Mrs. Hodges would be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder; and so Patty told me, and I was exceedingly shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley know anything about it for the world! He would be so very——I wanted to keep it from Jane’s knowledge, but unluckily I had mentioned it before I was aware.”

“Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door, and her visitors walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will. ‘Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase; rather darker and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss Woodhouse, I am quite concerned; I am sure you have hurt your foot. Miss Smith, the step at the turning.’”[55]

The scene which the opening of the door presents is often quoted for its perfection of quiet realism. “The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered was tranquillity itself. Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment, slumbering on one side of the fire; Frank Churchill, at a table near her, most deeply occupied about her spectacles; and Jane Fairfax, standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.”

“What!” said Mrs. Weston, “have not you finished it yet? You would not earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.”

“I have not been working uninterruptedly,” he replied; “I have been assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily; it was not quite firm, an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.”

This last sentence is for Emma, as he immediately renews his marked attentions to her, contrives that she shall be seated by him, looks out the best roasted apple for her, and tries to make her advise him in his work, till Jane is ready to sit down to the piano.

There is no doubt Jane is agitated. Emma imagines that she has not possessed the instrument long enough to get accustomed to its associations. When the player is able to do herself justice, everybody is loud in praise of the piano.

Frank Churchill, in the middle of an assertion that whoever Colonel Campbell had employed, the person has not chosen ill, introduces with a smile to Emma certain doubles entendres with regard to the musical taste of the old Weymouth party, and to the enjoyment which Miss Fairfax’s friends in Ireland must have in imagining what she will be doing, until even Emma tells him in a whisper it is not fair, hers has been a random guess.

Jane pretends not to hear, and answers with the briefest acknowledgment of his apparent meaning. He goes to her and urges her to play one of the waltzes they danced last night, exclaiming, “Let me hear them once again.”

As she plays, he exclaims on the felicity of hearing again a tune which has made one happy before, adding, “If I mistake not, that was danced at Weymouth.”

She looks at him for a moment, colours deeply, and plays something else.

He brings over some music, including a new set of “The Irish Melodies,” to show to Emma. The music had been selected and sent with the piano. Frank Churchill honours that part of the gift particularly. It has all been so thoughtful, so complete. True affection only could have prompted it.

Emma wishes he would not be so pointed in his remarks, but glancing at Jane, she catches the ghost of a smile hovering about her lips, and has less scruple in her amusement. This excellent Jane Fairfax indulges in very reprehensible feelings.

Mr. Knightley passes the window on horseback; and Miss Bates trots into the next room, and from an open window holds a colloquy with him, charmingly characteristic of both speakers, and perfectly audible to the visitors in the apartment she has just quitted.

“How d’ye do? How d’ye do? Very well, I thank you; so obliged to you for the carriage last night. We were just in time; my mother just ready for us. Pray come in; do come in; you will find some friends here.”

So began Miss Bates, and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say, “‘How is your niece, Miss Bates? I want to inquire after you all, but particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax? I hope she caught no cold last night. How is she to-day? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is!’

“And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear anything else. The listeners were amused, and Mrs. Weston gave Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in steady scepticism.

“‘So obliged to you! So very much obliged to you for the carriage,’ resumed Miss Bates.

“He cut her short with, ‘I am going to Kingston. Can I do anything for you?’

“‘Oh, dear! Kingston, are you? Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she wanted something from Kingston.’

“‘Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do anything for you?’

“‘No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here? Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith, so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte. Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in.’

“‘Well,’ said he, in a deliberating manner, ‘for five minutes, perhaps.’

“‘And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill, too. Quite delightful, so many friends.’

“‘No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on to Kingston as fast as I can.’

“‘Oh, do come in; they will be so very happy to see you.’

“‘No, no; your room is full enough. I will call another day and hear the pianoforte.’

“‘Well, I am so sorry. Oh, Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last night; how extremely pleasant! Did you ever see such dancing? Was not it delightful? Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill; I never saw anything equal to it.’

“‘Oh, very delightful indeed; I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing everything that passes, and’ (raising his voice still more) ‘I do not see why Miss Fairfax should not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well; and Mrs. Weston is the very best country dance player, without exception, in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say something pretty loud about you and me in return; but I cannot stay to hear it.’

“‘Oh, Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence—so shocked! Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!’

“‘What is the matter now?’

“‘To think of you sending us all your store apples. You said you had a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked. Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You should not have done it, indeed you should not have done it. Ah, he is off.’”

Frank Churchill easily induces his father to consent to give a ball the night before Frank is to leave Randalls. No room in the house is large enough to meet the hospitable gentleman’s views, and it is at last fixed to give the ball at the Crown Inn. Emma is engaged by the hero of the evening for the first two dances; and even the grave Jane Fairfax is sufficiently moved by the brilliant prospect to exclaim, “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing will happen to prevent the ball. I look forward to it, I own, with very great pleasure.”

But time and tide, and the humours of a tyrannical woman, accommodate themselves to no man. A summons arrives for Frank Churchill to return instantly to his uncle’s place at Enscombe, as his aunt is far too unwell to do without him.

Frank has no great belief in the illness, but he is forced to obey orders. The ball has to be deferred to the uncertain period of his next visit.

Extremely disconsolate, he pays his farewell calls, and when at Hartfield, while talking of other things—the length of time before he came to Highbury, his recent leave-taking at the Bateses, he seems suddenly on the point of a serious declaration, “In short,” said he, after getting up and walking to a window—“perhaps, Miss Woodhouse—I think you can hardly be without suspicion——”

But either Emma does not afford him sufficient encouragement, or some other obstacle occurs to hinder him, for he goes no further than a profession of warm regard for Hartfield.

To Emma the loss of the ball and her partner is a severe disappointment. She finds Jane Fairfax’s comparative composure on the misfortune odious. But she is a little softened by hearing of the bad headaches from which Jane has been suffering, and is willing to admit that her unbecoming indifference may proceed from the apathy engendered by bad health.

Emma has arrived at the point of believing she returns Frank Churchill’s love. At first, when she misses him and the ball most, she fancies she is very much in love; then the “very much” dwindles down to a “little,” since Emma, who is still quite capable of reasoning on her feelings, makes the acute observation, that though she admires and likes him, she continues to see faults in him; and she notices that in all the imaginary scenes and dialogues which she invents for herself and Frank Churchill, while he is to urge his suit with all the eloquence of passion and true affection, she is always to refuse him, in the tenderest and most delicate manner indeed, but still to refuse him. Their love is inevitably destined to subside into friendship.

Emma had long ago determined never to quit her father, but it strikes her now—that were she strongly attached to Frank, there would be, even in anticipation, more struggle in the sacrifice.

Having come to this sage conclusion, Emma is a little sorry for Frank; the next thing is to provide him with a substitute for the wife he can never win from Hartfield. Her own partiality for her friend, and desire to atone to her for her former error, together with an accidental polite reference in one of his letters to his step-mother, puts Harriet Smith into Emma’s creative brain. For she is not cured of match-making, she is still inveterately possessed with what is most apt to be the clever, warm-hearted matron’s mania for arranging the matrimonial affairs of others.

In fact, Emma, with all her youthful pride and dignity, is in some danger of becoming a meddler and busybody in other people’s business. Even the knowledge she might have had of how different are Mr. and Mrs. Weston’s—not to say Mr. and Mrs. Churchill’s—expectations for their son and nephew, does not serve to crush the foolish idea, though it only lurks in the background in the meantime.

III.

A new event stirs Highbury. Mr. Elton brings home his bride. She is first seen in her pew at church, and is ecstatically admired.

Emma withholds her judgment, even beyond the opportunity given by her first call at the vicarage, when she takes Harriet Smith with her. Emma will not pronounce an opinion yet, beyond the very modified admission that Mrs. Elton is “elegantly dressed,” while the meekly magnanimous little goose, Harriet, finds the bride “beautiful, very beautiful,” and adds, with a sigh, “Happy creature! He called her ‘Augusta;’ how delightful!”

On farther acquaintance, Emma discovers, with a certain severe satisfaction, that Mr. Elton, as she has learnt to know him, is fitly mated.

Mrs. Elton is one of Jane Austen’s most cleverly and sharply-drawn characters. The pretentious, underbred woman, “pert and familiar,” without the faintest sense of her own deficiencies—on the contrary, with an overflowing self-satisfaction and self-conceit patronising everybody and everything—is hit to the life. We have all heard similar boasting to that of Mrs. Elton on the subject of her rich Bristol brother-in-law’s house, “Maple Grove.” We have listened to like-minded proposals “to explore” with the Sucklings, when they bring over their barouche-landau, our own accessible, familiar neighbourhood, every step of which is intimately known to us. We have been recommended to watering-places, and offered introductions by those whom we were tempted to regard as little called upon or qualified to give us advice and assistance. We have been treated to the modern “doubles” of all Mrs. Elton’s bridal airs and affectations; that sporting of the newly-acquired importance of the matron; that literal quoting, in the worst taste, of Mr. E. and the “cara sposa;” that free and easy manner of naming our own familiar friends by their surnames,[56] as if the men were the new comer’s special cronies; that vulgar superciliousness with regard to the supposed disadvantages and consequent inferiority of other people whom we have every reason to esteem and cherish. Have we not been in danger of crying out with Emma, “Insufferable woman! worse than I had supposed. Absolutely insupportable! Knightley! I could not have believed it. Knightley! Never seen him in her life before, and call him Knightley! and discover that he is a gentleman! A little, upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E. and her cara sposa, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery,[57] actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs. Weston! Astonished that the person who brought me up should be a gentlewoman! Worse and worse! I never met with her equal. Much beyond my hopes! Harriet is disgraced by any comparison.”

Mr. Elton, fortunately or unfortunately, is more than satisfied with his choice. It is fortunate for his matrimonial felicity; it is unfortunate where the man’s mind and heart are concerned. It proves him hardly capable of appreciating any higher qualities than those with which his wife is endowed; and under her influence he is certain to deteriorate.

Mrs. Elton soon shows her resentment at Emma’s coldness. Her pique causes the vicar’s wife to behave to Harriet Smith with a sneering negligence, which convinces Emma that Harriet’s attachment, and her own share in it, have been “an offering to conjugal unreserve” which does little credit to Mr. Elton’s generosity and honour.

With the ready propensity to rivalry of a small, vain, and vindictive nature, Mrs. Elton puts herself, as she judges, at the head of an opposite faction. She conceives a violent fancy for Jane Fairfax, whom she oppresses with condescending notice and attention, accepted in grateful good faith by Jane’s relations, and by Jane herself, because no better friendship, as Mr. Knightley takes care to remind Emma, offers itself to the lonely girl.

One good thing comes to Emma as the result of her conversation with Mr. Knightley on the incongruity of Jane Fairfax’s intimacy at the vicarage. Emma has the courage to hint to Mr. Knightley that the extent of his admiration for Jane Fairfax may take him by surprise some day.

“Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or some other cause, brought the colour into his face as he answered—

“‘Oh! are you there? But you are miserably behind-hand. Mr. Cole gave me a hint of it six weeks ago.’

“He stopped, Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not herself know what to think. In a moment he went on—

“‘That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I daresay, would not have me if I were to ask her, and I am sure I shall never ask her.’

“Emma returned her friend’s pressure with interest, and was pleased enough to exclaim, ‘You are not vain, Mr. Knightley; I will say that for you.’

“He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful, and, in a manner which showed him not pleased, soon afterwards said, ‘So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?’

“‘No, indeed, I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. Oh! no; upon my word I have not the smallest wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax, or Jane anybody. You would not come in and sit with us in this comfortable way if you were married.’

“Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was—‘No, Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take me by surprise. I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure you.’ And soon afterwards, ‘Jane Fairfax is a very charming young woman; but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.’

“Emma could not but rejoice to hear she had a fault.

“‘Well, Mrs. Weston,’ said Emma triumphantly, when he left them, ‘what do you say now to Mr. Knightley’s marrying Jane Fairfax?’

“‘Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the idea of not being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me.’”

At a dinner-party given by the Woodhouses, to which John Knightley has come down by accident, Jane Fairfax is present by special invitation, her hostess being a little conscience-stricken for her sins of omission in that quarter.

John Knightley looks at Mrs. Elton in her lace and pearls, taking notes for Isabella’s edification; but he consents to talk to a quiet girl and old acquaintance like Jane Fairfax. In their conversation, it comes out that she goes every morning before breakfast to the post-office[58] to fetch the letters. It is her daily errand when at Highbury.

She provokes the remark from her companion that the post-office has a great charm at one period of people’s lives. When Miss Fairfax has lived to Mr. John Knightley’s age, she will begin to think letters are never worth going through such a shower of rain as he has seen her out in that morning, to obtain them.

He makes her blush. What is worse than his blunt, friendly remonstrance, he attracts the attention of the rest of the company to the subject. Mr. Woodhouse strikes in with his plaintive protest against anybody, a young lady especially, exposing herself to wet. Mrs. Elton rushes to the rescue with her loud, authoritative reproach: “My dear Jane, what is this I hear? Going to the post-office in the rain! You sad girl; how could you do such a thing?” Mrs. Weston is appealed to, and she adds her quiet, sensible prohibition against young people’s running any risk.

“Oh!” cries Mrs. Elton, “she shall not do such a thing again. The man who fetches our letters shall inquire for yours too, and bring them to you.”

Jane, thus baited, stands mildly but firmly at bay. Mrs. Elton is extremely kind, but Jane cannot give up her early walk.[59] She is advised to be out of doors. The post-office is an object.

Mrs. Elton, who has neither good breeding nor tact, will not be put down.

“My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined—that is” (laughing affectedly) “as far as I can presume to determine anything without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston, you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves.”

Still Jane looks unconquered.

The conversation wanders to handwriting. John Knightley refers to the statement that the same sort of writing often prevails in a family, and observes that Isabella and Emma write very much alike.

“Yes,” said his brother hesitatingly, “there is a likeness. I know what you mean—but Emma’s hand is the strongest.”

“Isabella and Emma both write beautifully,” said poor Mr. Woodhouse, “and always did, and so does Mrs. Weston,” with half a sigh and half a smile at her.

Dinner is on the table. Mrs. Elton, before she can be spoken to, is ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse has reached her, with his request to be allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, is saying—

“Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way!”

Jane’s solicitude about fetching her letters has not escaped Emma, who ascribes it to an unworthy source; and if the young hostess had not been in her own house, therefore on honour to Jane, Emma might have been wicked enough to make some remark on the expedition or the expense of Irish mails.

Frank Churchill returns on the earliest opportunity, and the ball at the Crown is to take place. A council of ladies and gentlemen is first summoned to pronounce on the rooms. Emma thinks the preliminary gathering absurdly large. It is no great compliment to be the confidential adviser of Mr. Weston when he takes everybody into his confidence.

Frank Churchill is almost as bad, restlessly rushing to the door to receive every new arrival, and providing umbrellas, under which Miss Bates and her niece may cross the street.

The Eltons, too, are there, Mrs. Elton eager to put in her word, and demonstrative as usual to Jane Fairfax. Emma wonders what Frank Churchill will think of the bride’s manners. She is not long left in doubt.

“How do you like Mrs. Elton?” Emma asks him in a whisper.

“Not at all.”

“You are ungrateful,” said Emma, thinking of a flattering account she has heard the lady give his father of what she had been told of Frank.

“Ungrateful! What do you mean?” he cries quickly; then, changing from a frown to a smile, “No, do not tell me. I do not want to know what you mean. Where is my father?”

Emma can hardly understand Frank Churchill; he seems in an odd humour, but she makes no objection when he claims her for his partner, though she has to submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, who opens the ball with Mr. Weston; yet Emma has always considered it her ball. It is almost enough to make her think of marrying. Still Emma is able to enjoy the dance, and be satisfied that Frank Churchill dances as well as she had thought; though it is indubitable to her, and to her honour, the conviction rather affords her relief than wounds her vanity, that Frank Churchill thinks less of her than formerly. There is nothing like flirtation between them; they seem more like easy, cheerful friends than lovers.

What troubles Emma more than Frank Churchill’s early secession as a lover is Mr. Knightley’s not dancing. There he is, among the standers by, where he ought not to be. He ought to be dancing, not classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who are pretending to feel an interest in the dance, till their rubbers are made up—so young as he looks, his tall, upright figure among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of the elderly men.

He moves a few steps forward, and these few steps forward are enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner, with what natural grace he must have danced would he but take the trouble.

Indeed, Emma has always entertained the highest opinion of George Knightley’s air and looks. She has told Harriet Smith, in trying to teach her simply what a well-bred man is like, that Mr. Knightley must be put out of count, he is so very superior to other people. Emma has never seen a man on whose whole person and address “gentleman” is more legibly written—and here Emma is right.

The ball rewards the anxious cares and incessant attentions of Mrs. Weston by going off happily, as old balls in county halls and ball-rooms of market-town inns had a knack of doing. People had fewer pleasures then, and were more easily entertained. They have left a pleasant flavour behind them—these early, social, eminently respectable country balls, when whitewashed walls were considered picturesquely hidden by a few common evergreens, and the mere sight of primitively chalked floors set young hearts dancing before the feet executed their “steps.”

One incident impresses Emma. Harriet Smith is sitting down—the only young lady without a partner. Mr. Elton is strolling about ostentatiously in her vicinity. Mrs. Weston, as in duty bound, tries to get him to dance. He professes his willingness, though getting an old married man, to become her partner. She points out to him a more fitting partner—the young lady who has sat down—Miss Smith. “Miss Smith! Oh, Miss Smith he has not observed. Mrs. Weston is extremely obliging, but his dancing days are over;” and a meaning smile passes between him and his wife.

This is the amiable, obliging Mr. Elton of other days! Emma can scarcely conceal her indignation, until she sees Mr. Knightley, whom Mr. Elton has joined, come forward and lead Harriet to the set. Never has Emma been more surprised, seldom more delighted. His dancing is as good as she anticipated, and she would have been tempted to think Harriet too lucky had it not been for what went before.

Emma expresses her gratification to Mr. Knightley later in the evening, and he increases it by telling her he has found Harriet Smith more conversable than he expected. She has some first-rate qualities which Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless girl is infinitely to be preferred, by any man of sense and taste, to such a woman as Mrs. Elton.

They are interrupted by Mr. Weston calling on everybody to begin dancing again. “Come, Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all doing? Come, Emma, set your companions the example. Everybody is lazy! everybody is asleep!”

“I am ready,” said Emma, “whenever I am wanted.”

“Whom are you going to dance with?” asks Mr. Knightley.

She hesitates a moment, and then replies, “With you, if you will ask me.”

“Will you?” said he, offering his hand.

“Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”

“Brother and sister!—no, indeed.”

As ill luck will have it, the very next day Frank Churchill rescues Harriet Smith from the rudeness of a party of tramps and gipsies, and brings her on his arm to the nearest house (Hartfield); when, acting according to the instincts of such amiable but helpless heroines, Harriet immediately faints away.

Such a romantic adventure is not lost on Emma. It stimulates immensely her idle dream of how handsome a young couple Frank Churchill and Harriet would make, and how desirable it would be to bring them together.

Emma is not deterred from this last mischievous crochet, by a special revelation of Harriet’s former foolish sentiments, which the girl considers herself called on to make. Mr. Elton has behaved so very badly to Harriet, that meek as the girl is, she can admire him at a humble distance no longer. She brings solemnly to Emma a little Tunbridge box, full of treasures which have become valueless, and which Harriet wishes Miss Woodhouse should see her destroy. There is a bit of court-plaister, left over from a piece with which Emma had made Harriet supply Mr. Elton, when he had happened to cut his hand in their service. There is also a stump of a pencil, which he flung aside after he had used up the lead in writing a recipe for spruce-beer, at Mr. Knightley’s dictation.

Emma is lost between wonder and shame. Harriet’s auto da fé has a double motive. She can no longer reverence Mr. Elton, and she can reverence another man, for whose sake she vaguely protests she is determined to remain single, since it would be utter presumption in her to think he could ever seek her out.

Emma gathers as much as this from her companion, and hesitates, with just a grain of dawning prudence, whether she ought to speak, or let Harriet’s heroic resolution pass in silence.

But Harriet may think it unkind; besides, just a little encouragement, judiciously administered, may not be amiss to check further confidences on Harriet’s part. She is to be shown that her “dear Miss Woodhouse” does not disapprove of her aspirations, and at the same time made to comprehend that the old, improper, undesirable discussion of hopes and chances is not to be renewed. Therefore, without mentioning Frank Churchill’s name, Emma tells Harriet that her feelings are natural and honourable to her, and at the same time bestows on her some excellent significant advice about not giving way to her feelings; on the contrary, she must let the gentleman’s behaviour be the guide to her sentiments as well as to her conduct. But Emma rather undoes her teaching by volunteering an additional “He is your superior, no doubt, and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place; there have been matches of greater disparity.”

At the end of the little lecture Harriet is at once grateful and submissive.

In the course of the summer, when, from Mr. and Mrs. Churchill’s staying so near as Richmond, Frank Churchill can come often to Randalls, Mr. Knightley, who has taken an early dislike to the popular young man, learns to dislike him still more. He, Mr. Knightley, begins to suspect double dealing on Frank Churchill’s part, double dealing which has to do with Emma Woodhouse and Jane Fairfax. It seems plain that Emma is his object. His own attentions coincide with his father’s hints, and his step-mother’s guarded silence. But while all their world is giving Frank Churchill to Emma, and Emma herself is secretly giving him to Harriet, Mr. Knightley learns to suspect him of an inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax.

Mr. Knightley cannot read the riddle; but he is convinced that he perceives symptoms of intelligence between Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax. There are not only betrayals of admiration for Jane—out of place in Emma’s lover; but Mr. Knightley is persuaded, in spite of his belief in Jane Fairfax’s discretion, that there is a liking, even a private understanding, between the two visitors to Highbury.

A large party, including Mrs. Weston and Frank Churchill, Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax, and Mr. Knightley, have met by chance at Hartfield. Mr. Perry passes by on horseback.

“By-the-bye,” said Frank Churchill to his step-mother, “what became of Mr. Perry’s plan of setting up his carriage?”

Mrs. Weston answers she never heard of it.

He maintains she wrote him word of it three months before.

She declares it is impossible.

He insists that he remembers it perfectly. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was very happy about it. It had been her proposal, as she thought being out in bad weather did him harm.

Mrs. Weston cannot remember.

Then it must have been a dream, Frank Churchill turns round and suggests.

His father, who has not heard all the conversation, inquires if Perry is really going to set up a carriage. Mr. Weston is glad Perry can afford it. Did Frank have it from himself?

No, Frank replies, laughing, he seems to have had it from nobody. Of course, it must have been a dream. He dreams of everybody at Highbury, and when he has gone through his particular friends, then he begins dreaming of Mr. and Mrs. Perry.

His father comments on the odd coherence and probability of the dream, just what was likely to happen.

At last Miss Bates gets in her word. It is very singular—she does not mean that Mr. Frank Churchill may not have had such a dream, but there actually had been such a proposal. Mrs. Perry had come to Miss Bates one morning in great spirits, believing that she had prevailed in persuading her husband to have a carriage. It had been spoken of in confidence, but the Coles had known of it. It was an extraordinary dream.

Mr. Knightley, who has been listening to the whole discussion, thinks he discerns confusion, suppressed and laughed away, in Frank Churchill’s face. Mr. Knightley tries to see the expression of Jane Fairfax’s, but in vain; at the same time he becomes aware that Frank Churchill is striving still more intently to catch her eye, with equal want of success.

During the evening Frank Churchill looks on a side-table for the little Knightleys’ alphabets. It is a dull-looking evening, he says, fit for winter amusements; and he wishes to puzzle Emma as he did once before. When the box with the letters is brought, Frank and Emma begin quickly forming words. He pushes one before Jane Fairfax. She glances round the table and applies herself to it, discovers the word, and with a faint smile pushes away the letters. They are not mixed with the others, and Harriet Smith, who tries every heap without making anything of it, draws this one towards her and begins to puzzle over it.

Mr. Knightley is sitting next to Harriet, and she turns to him for help. Soon she proclaims with exultation, blunder. Jane Fairfax blushes.

Mr. Knightley connects the word and the blush with the dream. Yet how the delicacy of his favourite must have gone to sleep! He is grieved and angry. He suspects the game is being made a mere vehicle for trick and gallantry in Frank Churchill’s hands.

Indignant and alarmed, Mr. Knightley continues to watch Frank Churchill. He prepares a short word for Emma, which she soon makes out. The two laugh over it, though she cries, “Nonsense, for shame!”

Mr. Knightley hears Frank Churchill say, with a glance towards Jane, “I will give it to her, shall I?”

Emma opposes the proceeding with laughing urgency. It is done, however. Mr. Knightley’s keen curiosity assists him. He deciphers “Dixon,” though he has not Jane Fairfax’s key to the insinuation.

She is evidently displeased; looks up, and seeing herself watched, blushes deeply. She says, “I did not know that proper names were allowed,” and pushes away the letters with even an angry spirit. She turns to her aunt as a signal that it is time to leave.

Mr. Knightley thinks he sees another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards her, and swept away by her unexamined. She is looking for her shawl afterwards, and Frank Churchill is searching also for it. It is growing dusk, the room is in confusion, and Mr. Knightley cannot tell how they part.

Mr. Knightley remains behind the others, to give Emma a warning. He asks her what is the peculiar sting of the last word given to her and Miss Fairfax? Why is it entertaining to the one, and distressing to the other?

Emma looks disconcerted. It is only a joke among themselves, she says.

The joke, he observes, gravely, seems confined to her and Mr. Churchill.

Mr. Knightley has not done. He tries, though disappointed by her silence, and painfully impressed with the conviction of her attachment to young Churchill, to furnish her with another hint. Is she perfectly acquainted with the degree of intimacy between the gentleman and lady they have been speaking of?

Perfectly, Emma tells him, with conviction.

Has she never received any reason to think he admired her, or she admired him.

Never, for the twentieth part of a moment. How could such an idea come into his head?

He has imagined he has seen something of attachment—looks which he did not believe were meant for the public.

Emma is very much amused. She rallies him on the flights of his fancy, which she would be sorry to check. There is no admiration. The appearances he has noticed proceed from peculiar circumstances she cannot explain. There is a good deal of nonsense in it all, but no two people can be farther from admiration or attachment—at least, she presumes it is so with Jane Fairfax. As to the gentleman’s indifference, Emma can answer for it. She is in gay spirits, which Mr. Knightley, in quitting her, does not at all share.

IV.

There are to be two expeditions to Box Hill, the one having given rise to the other. Mrs. Elton has organised an “exploring” picnic for her brother and sister, the Sucklings, of Maple Grove, with their barouche-landau. Emma and the Westons are to have something of the same description, but very different—quiet, unpretending, and elegant, in contrast to the fuss, ostentation, and regular eating and drinking of the first.

What is Emma’s disgust to find that Mr. Weston, in his incorrigible good nature, has proposed to unite the two parties, since Mrs. Elton had been deprived of the company of the Sucklings. Chagrin or no chagrin, Emma has to submit; and Mrs. Elton is impatient to settle about the pigeon pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse overthrows all calculation, and threatens a delay of weeks.

“Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?” Mrs. Elton appeals, with her characteristic freedom, to the Squire of Donwell. “Such weather for exploring!”

“You had better explore Donwell,” suggests the forbearing gentleman; “that may be done without horses. Come and eat my strawberries; they are ripening fast.”

If he has spoken in jest, he has to act in earnest, for the proposal is caught at with delight. Not only so; Mrs. Elton elects herself queen of the feast. “I am lady patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring my friends with me.”

But the host is quite capable of repelling aggression. “I hope you will bring Elton,” he says, with courteous calmness; “but I will not trouble you to give any other invitation.”

Oh, he need not be afraid of delegating power to her. She is no young lady on preferment. Married women may be safely authorised. It is her party. Leave it all to her; she will invite the guests.

“No,” he calmly replies; “there is but one married woman in the world whom I can allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and that one is——”

“Mrs. Weston, I suppose?” interrupts the mortified Mrs. Elton.

“No—Mrs. Knightley; and till she is in being I will manage matters myself.”

Was ever rebuff better given, with equal judgment and moderation? In spite of her pushing self-assertion Mrs. Elton has to subside into a mere guest, with the comfort, however, of telling everybody that she has originated the party—that Knightley has given it to gratify her.

Mrs. Elton has insisted it is to be a morning scheme—quite a simple thing. She is to wear a large bonnet, and bring one of her little baskets hanging on her arm. They are to walk about the gardens, and gather the strawberries themselves, sit under trees, and have a table spread in the shade—everything as natural and simple as possible. Is not that his idea?

“Not quite;” he puts down her officiousness and affectation with quiet, well-bred humour. His idea of the simple and the natural would be to have the table spread in the dining-room; when they were tired of eating strawberries in the garden, there should be cold meat in the house.

She wishes she had a donkey, the thing would be for them all to come on donkeys—Jane, Miss Bates, and herself, with her cara sposa walking by. In country life a donkey is a sort of necessary; in summer there is dust and in winter there is dirt.

No doubt Mr. Knightley keeps his countenance while he assures her Donwell Lane is never dusty, and at that season of the year it is dry. “Come on a donkey, however, if you prefer it; you can borrow Mrs. Cole’s.”

One reason for Mr. Knightley’s declining to make his guests dine out of doors is, that he hopes to persuade Mr. Woodhouse to accompany Emma; and Mr. Woodhouse, who has not been at Donwell for two years, is open to persuasion.

In fact, everybody accepts his or her invitation, and as happy events—like sad ones—do not come singly, the lame horse recovers, so the party to Donwell is settled for the one day and the excursion to Box Hill for the next.

Mr. Weston, in the innocence of his heart, proposes to get his son Frank over from Richmond to attend both parties, and Mr. Knightley is obliged to say he will be glad to see the young man.

On a bright June day Mr. Woodhouse is safely driven over in the carriage, with one window down, to join in the al fresco party, by sitting in one of the most comfortable rooms in the Abbey where a fire has burnt all the morning, with Mrs. Weston to bear him company.

The few words representing Donwell Abbey have the usual effect of Jane Austen’s spare but graphic, and perfectly unaffected, unlaboured descriptions. The house and grounds, under the brooding heat of the midsummer day, lie before us. The Abbey is an ample and irregular building, low-lying, with all the old neglect of “prospect,” but having abundance of “timber” in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance has rooted up. There are extensive gardens, stretching down to meadows washed by a stream. We can understand Emma Woodhouse’s “honest pride and complacency” in her connection with the present and future proprietor of Donwell Abbey.

There is an unaccountable delay in the arrival of Frank Churchill, who was to have come on horseback, and some fears as to his horse are entertained.

In the meantime Mrs. Elton picks strawberries and talks for everybody—not excepting Miss Bates.

At last, when the various groups are resting on the seats in the shade, Emma cannot help overhearing Mrs. Elton urging on Jane Fairfax the acceptance of a situation as governess, offered to her through the Sucklings of Maple Grove.

Miss Fairfax is replying that she cannot fix on any arrangement till the return of the Campbells from Ireland.

Mrs. Elton is declining to be put off, and insisting on returning an answer in the affirmative by the next post.

Emma wonders how Jane can bear it, and even Jane looks vexed, speaks pointedly, and proposes to walk farther.

It is hot, and insensibly the company gather under the “delicious” shelter of a short avenue of limes, stretching beyond the gardens, and leading to nothing, unless to a view over a low stone wall, with high pillars, giving the appearance of an approach to the house where none had ever existed. The author objects to the sham, but expatiates—for her—on the view:—the distant bank, well clothed with wood—the Abbey Mill Farm, and its meadows—the river, making a curve around them. Jane Austen adds the short, significant sentence:—“It was a sweet view—sweet to the eye and mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright without being oppressive.”

In this walk, Emma is amused to find Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith leading the way. It is an odd tête-à-tête, but Emma is glad to see it, and to meet Mr. Knightley’s smile when she joins the couple, and finds him giving Harriet information on modes of agriculture. The smile seems to say—“These are my own concerns. I have a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of introducing Robert Martin.”

The cold repast is over, and still Frank Churchill does not put in an appearance. His father and mother are anxious, but take refuge in attributing his absence to some nervous attack of his aunt’s. Emma looks at Harriet. That young lady is learning self-restraint; she behaves very well, betraying no emotion.

The party go out again to see some old fish-ponds, and, perhaps, to get as far as the clover, which is to be cut to-morrow.

Emma makes up her mind to remain indoors with her father. He has been very well entertained hitherto with the books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos and shells brought out of the cabinets for his amusement. He has shown them all to Mrs. Weston; he will show them over again to Emma. The occupation is not so engrossing to Emma as to her father; she strolls into the hall, where she meets Jane Fairfax, coming quickly from the gardens, with a look of escape about her.

Jane hurriedly begs Emma to make her excuses if she should be missed. It is late. She ought to be at home. She does not want to say anything about going to give trouble. But will Miss Woodhouse kindly say, when the others come in, that she is gone?

Certainly, Emma says; but she remonstrates on Jane Fairfax’s walking to Highbury alone.

It will not hurt her; she walks fast; she will be at home in twenty minutes.

Emma, who never forgets what is due to herself and others when she can render her neighbour a service, offers her father’s servant; wishes to order the Hartfield carriage.

“Thank you, thank you!” Jane says, but resolutely declines, adding with agitation, “For me to be afraid of walking alone!—I, who may so soon have to guard others.”

Emma’s really kind heart is touched. She entreats to be allowed to lend the carriage, and urges that the heat is cause sufficient, since Jane is fatigued already.

Some of the bonds which fetter Jane’s spirit give way; she and Emma are nearer being friends at that moment than they have ever been before. Jane confides so far in her companion: “I am fatigued,” she owns, “but it is not the sort of fatigue—quick walking will refresh me. Miss Woodhouse, we all know at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are exhausted. The greatest kindness you can show me will be to let me have my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary.”

Emma has not another word to say, and is full of commiseration, when the words that burst from Jane at parting, “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of being sometimes alone!” betray the continued endurance the poor girl has to practise, even with some of those who love her best.

Jane has not been gone for a quarter of an hour, and Emma and her father have only reached the views of St. Mark’s Place, Venice, when Frank Churchill enters the room. His father and mother were right. A nervous seizure which had attacked Mrs. Churchill was the cause of his delay. He had almost given up the idea of coming, and if he had known how late he must be, and what he should have to suffer from the heat of the weather, he would not have started.

This is not like a speech which could come from the gallant Frank Churchill; but he continues to rail at the heat and at his own sufferings—sitting at the greatest possible distance from the small remnant of Mr. Weston’s fire, and looking deplorable—though Emma takes it upon her to assure him, somewhat exasperatingly, perhaps, that he will soon be cooler if he will sit still.

As soon as he is cooler he will go back again. He could ill be spared, only such a point had been made of his coming. They will all be going presently. He has met one of the party as he came—madness in such weather.

Emma can come to no other conclusion than that Frank Churchill is out of humour. Some people are always cross when they are hot. Eating and drinking often cures such incidental complaints. She obligingly recommends him to take some refreshment, and points out the dining-room door.

No, he is not hungry; eating would only make him hotter; but he thinks better of it and goes off, muttering something about spruce beer.[60]

Emma is glad she has done being in love with him; but Harriet has a sweet temper.

He comes back with his good manners, if not his good spirits, restored, enters into the Woodhouses’ occupation, but announces, apropos of sketches and Switzerland, that he hopes soon to go abroad. He wants a change. He is sick of England.

He is sick of prosperity, his lively companion tells him; but she does not think he is so miserable as when he arrived. Let him eat and drink a little more. Another slice of cold meat, another draught of madeira and water, and he will do very well.

No, he will sit by her; she is his best cure.

They are going to Box Hill to-morrow. It is not Switzerland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of a change.

No, certainly not; he will go home in the cool of the evening.

But he may come back again in the cool of the morning.

No, it would not be worth while. If he came he would be cross.

Then pray let him stay at Richmond.

But if he does, he will be crosser still. He could never bear to think of them all enjoying themselves without him.

He must settle these difficulties, and choose his own degree of crossness. She will press him no more.

Chaff was not a slang word early in the century. But how charmingly Jane Austen can chaff by the lips of more than one of her heroines! And what arch, sweet, perfectly womanly and ladylike chaff it is!

Frank Churchill[61] is very wrong, and yet there is a grain of excuse for him when he says to Emma at parting, “Well, if you wish me to stay and join the party, I will.”

Emma smiles her acceptance of the concession, very nearly as indefensibly.

There is another fine day for Box Hill; but though the scenery is much admired, the excursion somehow is not successful.

There is a want of spirit and a want of union which cannot be got over. The Eltons walk by themselves, Mr. Knightley takes charge of Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax, Frank Churchill escorts Emma and Harriet. Mr. Weston tries in vain to bring everybody together, and make the thing harmonious.

At first it is downright dulness to Emma, for Frank Churchill is actually stupid, and, of course, Harriet is no better. They are both insufferable. It would have been well if they had continued dull, though Emma flatters herself it is a great deal better when they all sit down together, and Frank grows talkative and gay, making Emma his first object; while she, glad to be enlivened, and not sorry to be flattered, affords him every encouragement, in forgetfulness, it must be confessed, of what Harriet’s feelings may be. But then Harriet is the most placid of human beings, the most confiding of friends.

Emma means nothing: she even believes that he means nothing; but in the opinion of most people present only one English word, “flirtation,” could describe their behaviour. “Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together excessively” might be the report sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to Ireland by another. Yet it is really because Emma is less—not more—happy than usual, that she lays herself open to the imputation.

Frank Churchill piles up his compliments, and Emma parries them merrily. The rest of the company fall into silence, as if to constitute themselves an audience for the genteel comedy, until Emma objects aloud to talking nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people.

“They shall talk,” Frank ordains. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am desired by Miss Woodhouse to say that she desires to know what you are all thinking of?”

There is a little flutter of amusement here, and indignation there.

Mr. Knightley’s answer is most distinct, and most to the purpose: “Is Miss Woodhouse sure she would like to hear what we are all thinking of?”

“Oh, no! no!” cries Emma, laughing as carelessly as she can; “upon no account in the world. Let me hear anything rather than what you are thinking of.”

“It will not do,” whispers Frank to Emma; “they are most of them affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say that she waives her right of knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires something very entertaining, from each of you, in a general way. Here are seven of you besides myself (who, she is pleased to say, am very entertaining already), and she only demands from each of you either one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated; or two things moderately clever; or three things very dull indeed; and she engages to laugh heartily at them all.”

“Oh, very well,” exclaims Miss Bates; “then I need not be uneasy. ‘Three things very dull indeed!’ That will just do for me, you know. I shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, sha’n’t I?” (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on everybody’s assent). “Do not you all think I shall?”

Emma cannot resist. “Ah, ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me, but you will be limited as to the number—only three at once.”

Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of the manner, does not immediately catch the meaning; but when it bursts on her, it cannot anger, though a slight blush shows that it can pain her.

“Ah! well, to be sure! Yes, I see what she means,” turning to Mr. Knightley, “and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”

Mr. Weston volunteers a conundrum, which is not very clever, but which he is sure Emma will not guess. “What two letters stand for perfection?—‘M’ and ‘A’—Em—ma.”

It may be a very indifferent piece of wit, but Emma finds a great deal to laugh at and enjoy in it.

Mr. Knightley says, gravely, “This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up everybody else. Perfection should not have come quite so soon.”

Mrs. Elton is swelling with resentment. “I really cannot attempt—I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I have a great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I must really be allowed to judge when to speak, and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please, Mr. Churchill! pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing clever to say—not one of us?”

“Yes, yes, pray pass me,” adds her husband, with a sort of sneering consciousness. “I have nothing to say that can entertain Miss Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man—quite good for nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?”

“With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot. Come, Jane, take my other arm.”

Jane declines, and the husband and wife walk off.

“Happy couple!” says Frank Churchill, as soon as they are out of hearing; “how well they suit one another! Very lucky, marrying, as they did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place. They only knew each other, I think, a few weeks, at Bath.” Then, suddenly becoming serious, he volunteers his emphatic opinion that there can be no knowledge of a person’s disposition in such circumstances, finishing with the sentence, “How many a man has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest of his life!”

Jane Fairfax wishes to speak. “Such things do occur, undoubtedly.” She is stopped by a cough.

“You were speaking?” said Frank Churchill.

She recovers her voice. “I was only going to observe that though such unfortunate circumstances do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise, but there is generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to mean that it can be only weak, irresolute characters (whose happiness must be always at the mercy of chance) who will suffer an unfortunate acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever.”

He makes no answer, merely looks and bows in submission, then resumes his flirtation with Emma, more furiously than before. Will she choose a wife for him? He is sure he will like anybody fixed on by her. He is in no hurry. Emma may adopt her, educate her.

“And make her like myself!” cries the heedless Emma.

By all means, if she can.

She undertakes the commission in high glee. He shall have a charming wife.

He only stipulates for two things. She must be lively, and she must have hazel eyes. He will go abroad for a couple of years, and when he returns he will come to her for a wife.

This jesting commission appeals to Emma’s special weakness. Will not Harriet be the very creature described—barring the liveliness and the hazel eyes—either sops of personal flattery thrown in for Emma herself, whose appetite for that commodity is not small, or words spoken at random? Might not Harriet be in his thoughts when he referred the education of his wife to Emma?

“Now, ma’am,” said Jane to her aunt, “shall we join Mrs. Elton?”

Miss Bates is ready, so is Mr. Knightley; it seems, to use a homely expression, that their absence will be better than their company.

Yet, after the rest of the party are gone, the pitch to which the young man’s spirits rise becomes almost unpleasant to Emma. She is fairly tired of fun and flattery. She welcomes the appearance of the servants and the ordering of the carriages.

But Emma is not to escape without the rebuke she deserves. She finds Mr. Knightley seeking to speak with her where nobody can hear. He says, “‘Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do—a privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps; but I must still use it. I cannot see you acting wrong without a remonstrance. How could you be so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to a woman of her character, age, and situation? Emma, I had not thought it possible.’

“Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off. ‘Nay, how could I help saying what I did? Nobody could have helped it. It was not so very bad. I daresay she did not understand me.’

“‘I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it—with what candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions as she was for ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be so irksome.’

“‘Oh!’ cried Emma, ‘I know there is not a better creature in the world; but you must allow that what is good and what is ridiculous are most unfortunately blended in her.’

“‘They are blended,’ said he, ‘I acknowledge, and were she prosperous I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave her every harmless absurdity to take its chance. I would not quarrel with you for any liberties of manner. Were she equal in situation—but, Emma, consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and if she live to old age must probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour—to have you now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, humble her—and before her niece, too, and before others, many of whom (certainly some) would be entirely guided by your treatment of her. This is not pleasant to you, Emma, and it is very far from pleasant to me; but I must, I will, tell you truths while I can; satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and trusting that you will, some time or other, do me greater justice than you can do now.’”

Nothing can be juster, manlier, more faithful than the remonstrance. It goes straight to Emma’s heart. Mr. Knightley is quite mistaken in imagining that she cannot appreciate it at its true worth. In the middle of her contrition and distress, she is eager to show him that she feels no sullenness. Not the least of her vexation is occasioned by her having failed, in the hurry of the moment, to acknowledge the true friendship of his tone, and by their having exchanged no friendly leave-taking.

How could she have been so brutal, so cruel to Miss Bates; how could she have exposed herself to such an ill opinion in any one she valued, and then to suffer him to go without one word of gratitude and common kindness?

Truly, Emma is candid, good, and gracious, in spite of her worst faults, when these are contrasted with the intolerable flippancy, the selfish heartlessness of some so-called heroines. We are sorry for her as she drives away with Harriet, the tears stealing down Emma’s cheeks in the comparative privacy of such companionship.

That scene at Box Hill, with its lights and shades, its apparent comedy and hidden tragedy, its diversity of characters and feelings so finely indicated, is the best in the book.

“Who breaks—pays.” Emma has, next morning, as the inevitable result of her regardless folly the day before, to face a host of wretched reflections. Girl-like, she is in haste to atone, as if atonement were always easy or possible. She will go that very day to the Bateses, and, though she cannot speak out her compunction, she will, from this time henceforth, do all that is in her power to make up for her offence, by lavishing friendly kindness on the family.

She fears for a moment she is to be refused admittance, but it is only Jane Fairfax who is retreating from the visitor. The mother and daughter are as civil and humble as usual, though it pains Emma to recognise, at first, that Miss Bates is less cheerful and easy in her volubility.

But Emma’s special friendliness soon reconciles the good old lady to herself and all the world. Emma hears the present trouble poured forth in the usual jumble of ideas and sentences. The substance is that Jane has suddenly made up her mind to accept the situation Mrs. Elton hunted up for her.

Emma is sincerely interested, and sorry for them all, and expresses her feelings earnestly.

“So very kind,” replies the grateful Miss Bates, “but you are always kind.”

This is certainly heaping coals of fire on Emma’s head. She hastens to ask where Miss Fairfax is going.

“To Mrs. Smallridge—charming woman—to have the charge of three little girls—delightful children.”

Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove; but unfortunately Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry, and Jane is to leave in a fortnight.

On Emma’s return home, she finds Mr. Knightley with her father, looking in upon him before leaving for London, and wishing to learn if they have any messages for John and Isabella, with whom he is going to spend a few days.

Emma had not heard of the visit, though Mr. Knightley says he had been thinking of it for some time; and she is certain he has not forgiven her, he looks so unlike himself.

As they stand talking, Mr. Woodhouse begins to inquire for Mrs. Bates and her daughter, with whom Emma has been—she is so attentive to them.

At this peculiarly mal apropos praise, Emma’s colour rises, while she looks at Mr. Knightley and shakes her head.

It seems as if he instantly understands all that has been passing in her heart. He looks at her with a glow of regard, he takes her hand—she is not sure afterwards that she did not offer it, but he takes it, presses it, and is certainly on the point of carrying it to his lips, when, from some fancy or other, he suddenly lets it go.

He would have judged better, she thinks, if he had not stopped, but she can at least recall the attempt with great satisfaction. It speaks such perfect amity. The next moment he is gone.

The following day brings news from Richmond which throws everything else into the shade. An express had arrived at Randalls to announce the death of Mrs. Churchill. The great Mrs. Churchill (the tyrannical rich woman who has demanded such deference from both husband and nephew) is no more.

Jane Austen has a most pertinent reflection on the event and some of its consequences. “It was felt as such things must be felt. Everybody had a degree of gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill fame. Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of imaginary complaints.”

Emma soon begins to consider that now an attachment on Frank’s part to Harriet Smith will have nothing to encounter.

Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, is feared by nobody; an easy, guidable man—to be persuaded into anything by his nephew.

Harriet again behaves admirably, and betrays no agitation. Emma is delighted to have this evidence of her friend’s strengthened character.

In the interval, before anything can be known of Frank Churchill’s future, Emma longs to do the little she can to compensate for her neglect of Jane Fairfax, and for the idle, unworthy fancies of which she begins to feel thoroughly ashamed. But Jane is not so accessible to advances as her aunt is. Emma would have Jane spend a day at Hartfield before she quits Highbury, and writes to invite her. The invitation is refused, and a message sent that “Miss Fairfax is not well enough to write.”

Mr. Perry, in visiting the Woodhouses, confirms the accounts of Jane Fairfax’s illness. She is seriously indisposed, suffering from headaches, with nervous fever, and her appetite is gone. He doubts the possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge’s at the time fixed. He is uneasy about Jane Fairfax, though there are no absolutely alarming symptoms. Her present home is unfavourable to a nervous disorder.

Emma’s regrets and self-reproaches increase. She is eager to be useful; she writes again, with the greatest tact and feeling she can command, and proposes to take Jane for a drive, at any hour she will name.

Once more a verbal message is returned:—“Miss Fairfax’s compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any exercise.”

Emma thinks her note deserves more, but cannot be angry under the circumstances. She would have tried personal persuasion, but only Miss Bates comes to the carriage door to excuse her niece.

Hearing of Mr. Perry’s recommendation of nourishing food, Emma returns home, and calling the housekeeper, despatches some arrowroot of very superior quality, with a most friendly note to Miss Bates. In half an hour the arrowroot is returned with a thousand thanks from Miss Bates, but “dear Jane” would not be satisfied till it was sent back. It is a thing she cannot take, and she insists on her aunt saying that her niece is not in want of anything.

Such obduracy is unconquerable, and when Emma hears that Jane Fairfax had been wandering about the meadows at some distance from Highbury on the afternoon of the day on which she declined carriage exercise, Emma is forced to see that Jane is resolved to receive no kindness from her. She is sorry and mortified, but she has the comfort of thinking Mr. Knightley would have understood and appreciated her motives.

Ten days after Mrs. Churchill’s death, Mr. Weston comes himself one morning to Hartfield to beg Emma to accompany him to Randalls. Mrs. Weston is not ill, but she has something very particular to say to her friend. He will not tell beforehand what has happened, but on the road he is led into such explanations as “The most unaccountable business;” “she will break it to you better than I can.”

At the last words Emma stops short in terror. Something must have happened in Brunswick Square (where Isabella lives). Which of them is it? She must hear at once.

It is only on his solemnly assuring her that what has occurred has nothing to do with the name of Knightley that she is relieved, and walks on. “Who is that gentleman on horseback?” she asks, speaking in order to keep up a conversation on indifferent topics.

It is one of the Otways. Not Frank. She will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this time.

Has his son been with them, then?

Oh, yes! Did she not know? Well, never mind.

Mrs. Weston looks ill, and much disturbed, and no sooner is she left alone with Emma than the girl begs affectionately to be informed what unpleasant event has befallen her friends.

“Have you no idea?” said Mrs. Weston, in a trembling voice.

Emma does guess it has to do with Mr. Frank Churchill.

She is right, Mrs. Weston confesses, resuming her work, and fixing her eyes upon it. He had been there that morning on a most extraordinary errand. He came to speak to his father—to announce an attachment.

Emma thinks first of herself and then of Harriet.

“More than an attachment—a positive engagement. What will you say, Emma, what will anybody say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are engaged—nay, that they have been long engaged?”

Emma even jumped with surprise and consternation. Jane Fairfax! Mrs. Weston is not serious. She does not mean it?

“You may well be amazed,” returns Mrs. Weston, steadily averting her eyes; “you may well be amazed.”

There had been a solemn engagement between them ever since October, formed at Weymouth, and kept a secret from everybody, not a creature knowing it but themselves, neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.

Emma scarcely hears what is said. Her mind is divided between two overwhelming ideas—her own former conversations with him about Jane Fairfax, and poor Harriet. “Well,” she exclaims at last, “this is a circumstance I must think of at least half a day before I can comprehend it. What! engaged to her all the winter, before either of them came to Highbury?”

“It has hurt me very much,” said Mrs. Weston; “it has hurt his father equally; some part of his conduct we cannot excuse.”

Emma cannot pretend to misunderstand the speaker’s meaning. On the contrary, she is eager and glad to remove this load from the Westons’ minds. In a few words she explains that Frank Churchill’s attentions to her have not produced the effect his father and mother feared. It seems too good news to be true; but Emma confirms her assertions of indifference by owning there was a time when she did like him, but that time soon passed—why, she cannot tell, and she has not cared about him for the last three months.

Mrs. Weston kisses her, and cries with joy and thankfulness. On this point she and her husband have been wretched. They had warmly wished the match, and heartily believed in a mutual attachment. They have been miserable on Emma’s account.

Emma is grateful for her escape, but she is by no means inclined to excuse the offender. She turns, with her usual frankness and fervour, to protest against his conduct. “What right had he to come among us with affections and faith engaged, and manners so very disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please—as he certainly did—to distinguish any young woman, as he certainly did, while he really belonged to another? How could she bear such behaviour? Composure, with a witness! to look on while repeated attentions were offering to another woman before her face, and not resent it.”

Now that Mrs. Weston’s mind is so agreeably relieved, she seeks to find an apology for the delinquents.

Emma will not even listen to a reminder of his many good qualities. “Mrs. Smallridge, too!” she is exclaiming; “Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself—to suffer her even to think of such a measure!”

But Mrs. Weston is able to clear her stepson on this point—he knew nothing of it. There had been misunderstandings. Jane had taken a private resolution, which had somehow come round to Frank only the day before; it had determined him to come forward at once, own all to his uncle, and throw himself on his kindness. Had Mrs. Churchill lived there could hardly have been a hope of the family’s consent; with her influence gone everything had been easy. Frank was off with the morning light to Highbury, went straight to the Bateses, and then came on to his father’s. He had to return immediately to his uncle, but was to write in full to his stepmother.

Emma remarks dryly, she supposes they will immediately get reconciled to the idea, and she wishes the couple happy. But she will always think it a very abominable system of hypocrisy, deceit, espionage, and treachery. They must take the consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not perfectly agreeable.

Mrs. Weston congratulates herself that she has always thought so highly of Jane Fairfax, she can never have said ill of her to Frank.

Emma, smarting under her own consciousness, can only say her friend is in luck. But she is able to set worthy Mr. Weston’s mind at rest at once, by congratulating him, without the smallest difficulty, on having the loveliest and most accomplished young woman in England for his daughter-in-law.

“Harriet! poor Harriet!” There is the next torment. How is Emma to break such news a second time to her friend? Mr. Knightley’s words begin to sound prophetic—“Emma, you have been no friend to Harriet Smith.”

There is no necessity for farther solicitude on Jane Fairfax’s behalf. Her days of insignificance and evil are over. Now Emma can comprehend why her late offers of assistance and regard have been repulsed. In Jane’s eyes she has been a successful rival. In that light an airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack, and arrowroot from the Hartfield store-room must have proved poison.

But Harriet. Frank Churchill’s engagement is to be still kept a strict secret during the family’s period of mourning for Mrs. Churchill; however, there must be an explanation, on Harriet’s account.

Emma is reflecting Mrs. Weston’s agitation on her own behalf, when Harriet comes in, with the eager exclamation, “Is not this the oddest news that ever was about Jane Fairfax?” Mr. Weston has told her as the greatest secret. “How very odd!”

Harriet’s behaviour is so extremely odd, that Emma does not know what to make of it. She may spare her pity, if Harriet’s self-command has reached this height. Harriet is even asking, with the utmost coolness, if Miss Woodhouse had ever guessed that Mr. Frank Churchill was in love with Miss Fairfax?

“Never!” protests Emma; “you may be sure of that. If I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”

“Me!” cries Harriet, colouring; “why should you caution me? You do not think that I care about Mr. Frank Churchill?”

If it is not Frank, who can it be? Is Emma to suppose——?

But Harriet is quite ready to explain herself in the middle of her agitation. They have agreed not to name him; but he is so infinitely superior to everybody else, that Harriet does not see how she could have been thought to mean any other person. Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! Harriet does not know who would look at him in the presence of the other. And she has received the encouragement from Emma herself, when it would have seemed too much presumption almost, to dare to think of him—that more wonderful things had happened—there had been matches of greater disparity.

“Harriet,” cries Emma, “let us understand each other now, without the possibility of further mistake—are you speaking of Mr. Knightley?”

To be sure she is—she never could have an idea of anybody else.

Emma brings herself to ask, has Harriet any idea of Mr. Knightley’s returning her affection?

“Yes,” replies Harriet modestly, but not fearfully, “I must say I have.”

Emma is silent, in the bitterness of her heart. Why is it so much worse that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley than with Mr. Churchill? Why is the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet’s having some hope of a return of her love? There can only be one explanation—it darts through Emma’s mind with the swiftness of an arrow’s flight—Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself.

Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, lies bare before her. How inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling has been her behaviour! And if she has acted improperly by Harriet, she may have done still worse by Mr. Knightley. He had said she had been no friend to Harriet Smith. She may prove to have been his worst enemy, if it be possible that his association with Harriet can bring him to demean himself to make a girl, so inferior to him in every respect, his wife.

But Emma must not make Harriet suffer for her fault. Emma is always courageous in taking upon herself the heaviest penalty for her misdoings.

She gently questions Harriet as to her reason, besides the assurance Emma has given her, under a misconception, of Mr. Knightley’s growing regard for her. And as Harriet, with great naïveté, brings forward the different proofs—from his dancing with her at the ball at the Crown, down to his seeking her out, and walking with her at his own party at Donwell, including the change in his tone, his increased kindness, the pains he takes to ascertain her opinions in conversation, even to an effort to discover whether her affections are still disengaged, Emma, sick at heart, is compelled to admit there is some truth in what Harriet alleges. Emma herself has been struck with the additional notice which Mr. Knightley bestows on Harriet Smith, and several times lately he has praised her cordially to Emma.

If one could go so far as to conceive Mr. Knightley choosing a partner for life so inferior to him in understanding, as well as in every other desirable recommendation, then it might be that he would marry Harriet, though the vision of her as the mistress of Donwell Abbey humbles Emma for its master’s sake even more than for her own. If she had only not brought the two together; if she had but left Harriet to marry the unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy in the line of life to which she belonged—in which she ought to have remained. Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith! It is a union to distance every wonder of the kind. The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax becomes commonplace and threadbare—presents no disparity by comparison. Such elevation on Harriet’s side—such debasement on Mr. Knightley’s. It is impossible. And yet it is very far from impossible. Is it a new circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities to be captivated by very inferior powers? Is it new for one, perhaps too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who will seek him?

Still Emma can be honourably fair to Harriet, and gentle with her. But she does faintly suggest that Mr. Knightley may be paying attention to Harriet with Mr. Martin’s interest in view.

But Harriet rejects the suggestion with such spirit—she hopes she knows better now than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it—and so holds Emma to her former advice to observe the gentleman’s behaviour, and let it be the rule of hers (Harriet’s); that, though it requires a great exertion, Emma brings herself to say Mr. Knightley is the last man in the world who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his feeling more for her than he really did.

In return for the guarded speech, Harriet could have worshipped her reluctant friend.

Emma seeks to weigh her regard for Mr. Knightley—to ascertain its beginning and strength. Till she was threatened with its loss, she had never known how much her happiness was dependent upon him. She had long been first with him, for there was only Isabella to compete with her in his affections; and she had been aware that she came before her sister with him. She had known she was dear to him; and in her self-confident security, and her delusions and fancies, she had never so much as suspected that to be first and dearest with Mr. Knightley, or to have another woman supplant her, constituted the fulness or the blankness, the gladness or the sadness, of her lot.

Tried as Emma is, her good sense does not forsake her; she will not believe in her own and Mr. Knightley’s loss, so long as unbelief is possible. To continue to discuss the matter with Harriet is intolerable. She contrives to keep Harriet away from Hartfield.

A visit from Mrs. Weston is a distraction to Emma’s cares, though it is no longer of the importance it would have been before the last miserable discovery.

Mrs. Weston comes with the news of the Westons’ visit to the Bateses. Very great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady, while the innocent satisfaction and delight of her grandmother and aunt had been almost touching.

Jane Fairfax had spoken with energy to Mrs. Weston on the misery she had suffered during the concealment for so many months. This was one of her expressions:—“I will not say that since I have entered into the engagement I have not had some happy moments, but I can say that I have never known the blessing of one tranquil hour.”[62]

She had added:—“After all the punishment that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. The fortunate turn that everything has taken, and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me ought not to be. Do not imagine, madam, that I was taught wrong. I shall dread making the story known to Colonel Campbell.”

Emma is softened. “Poor girl! her affection must have overpowered her judgment.”

Mrs. Weston’s communications increase Emma’s esteem, compassion, and sense of past injustice to Jane Fairfax. To all her other regrets and sources of self-reproach is added the sense of having missed, by a feeling of jealousy, the friendship with Jane—marked out by equality of birth, abilities, and education, which all her friends had proposed for her, and which might have been of benefit to both girls. Instead, Emma had preferred the unsuitable, humble companionship and worship of Harriet Smith; and what has come of it?

V.

A cold, stormy rain sets in, stripping the July trees and shrubs. Mr. Woodhouse, whose spirits are easily affected by the weather, is more than usually dependent on cheering, at the very time that visitors fail. Emma, struggling to do a loving daughter’s part, cannot prevent herself from foreseeing how much more deserted Hartfield must soon prove. Mrs. Weston’s baby will engross her, and supersede even Emma in her friend’s affections. Both Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax will be gone from Highbury; and—far worst change of all, Mr. Knightley will be no longer walking in at all hours, when he has Harriet to keep him company at Donwell. And if he can be content with Harriet, only one reflection can increase Emma’s wretchedness—that it has been all her own work.

The rainy clouds clear away the following afternoon, and Emma seizes the opportunity of Mr. Perry’s calling and sitting with her father, to stroll out into the shrubbery—where the first thing she sees is Mr. Knightley passing the garden gate and coming towards her. She had not heard of his return from London, but she must be collected and calm. (Emma is a girl who possesses much self-respect and womanly dignity.)

Mr. Knightley, on his side, does not look cheerful; but he is perfectly capable of conversing quietly, as he turns and walks with her.

Emma fancies that he wishes to talk to her of Harriet, and shrinks from leading the way in the conversation, but braces herself to follow when he takes the initiative. It is only his recurring fits of silence she cannot bear.

She considers; tries to smile, and refers to some news for him to hear, which ought to surprise him.

If she means Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, he has heard that already, he tells her shortly.

Emma is relieved, but as she reminds him that he had once tried to give her a caution, and she wishes she had attended to it, her voice sinks and she sighs, adding, “I seem doomed to blindness.”

She suddenly finds her arm drawn within his and pressed, and hears him fairly faltering, “Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound—the feelings of the warmest friendship—indignation—abominable scoundrel!”

Emma[63] must undeceive him instantly.

“You are very kind, but you are mistaken. I am not in want of that sort of compassion. I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures; but I have no other reason to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”

“Emma,” he cries eagerly, “are you indeed——” but checking himself, “No, no. I understand you: forgive me. I am pleased that you can even say so much. He is no object of regret. I could only be certain there was a preference. He is a disgrace to the name of man, and is he to be rewarded with that sweet young woman?”

Emma has to renew her protestations, striving for the old liveliness to carry off her sense of awkwardness.

“I am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse. But I never have.”

Her companion says nothing, and Emma, to convince him, recapitulates earnestly the true particulars of the case—Frank’s being the son of Mr. Weston, his having been continually at Hartfield; the fact that his attentions flattered her, even after she had come to look on them as a habit, a trick, nothing that had called for seriousness on her part. He had imposed on her, still he had not taken her in, in the serious meaning of the words.

Mr. Knightley grows cooler, and admits he may have underrated Frank Churchill. With such a woman he has a chance. He is a fortunate man, at three-and-twenty to have drawn a prize. Everything turns out well for him. “He meets with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even weary her by negligent treatment; and had he and all his family sought round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found her superior. His aunt is in the way. His aunt dies. He has only to speak; his friends are eager to promote his happiness. He has used everybody ill, and they are all delighted to forgive him.”

“You speak as if you envied him,” exclaims Emma.

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”

Emma can say no more; they seem within half a sentence of Harriet. Emma wishes to change the subject, and speaks of the children in Brunswick Square.

But he is too fast for her. “You will not ask me what is the point of envy. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment.”

“Oh, then don’t speak of it; don’t speak of it,” she cries impulsively; “take a little time; consider; don’t commit yourself.”

“Thank you!” he said, in a tone of deep mortification.

Emma cannot bear to give him pain. He is wishing, perhaps, to consult her. She may help him; give just praise to Harriet, represent to him his independence.

Emma refuses to go in, and as they take another turn, says hurriedly, “I stopped you ungraciously just now, Mr. Knightley; but if you have any wish to speak to me openly, as a friend, you may command me. I will hear whatever you like, I will tell you exactly what I think.”

“As a friend,” repeats Mr. Knightley. No, he has no wish. But why should he hesitate when he has gone too far for concealment? He accepts her offer as a friend. Will she tell him if he has any chance of ever succeeding? He stops to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowers her.

“My dearest Emma, for dearest you will always be to me, whatever the event of this hour’s conversation, tell me at once; say ‘no’ if it is to be said.”

She can really say nothing.

“‘You are silent,’ he cries, 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.’”

Emma’s mind is busy. Harriet’s hopes have been groundless—a delusion as complete as any of her own—and Emma rejoices that Harriet’s secret has not escaped her. “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 more 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 spoke then on being entreated. What did she say? Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does. She said enough to show there need not be despair, and to invite him to say more himself.”

“Mr. Knightley had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had come to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement with no selfish view, the rest had been the work of a moment.

“Her change was equal. This one half-hour had given to each the same precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust. On his side there had been a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation, of Frank Churchill. He had been in love with Emma and jealous of Frank Churchill from about the same period, one sentiment having probably enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill that had taken him from the country. The Box Hill party had decided him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again such permitted, encouraged attentions. He had gone to learn to be indifferent, but he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form in it. Isabella was too much like Emma, differing only in those striking inferiorities which always brought the other in brilliancy before him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer. He had stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day, till this very morning’s post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax. Then, with the gladness which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no longer. He had ridden home through the rain, and had walked up directly after dinner to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.

“He had found her agitated and low. Frank Churchill was a villain. He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s character was not desperate. She was his own Emma, by hand and word, when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.” The concluding paragraph, in its mingled vivacity and satire, is peculiarly Jane Austen’s.

Emma had left the house for a little respite from suffering. She returns to it in an exquisite flutter of happiness. The reflections of a sleepless night tranquillise Emma’s feelings. Her gravest considerations are her father and Harriet, since Emma’s happiness by no means absolves her, in her own opinion, in that of her author, or in reality, from caring for others. She hardly knows yet what Mr. Knightley will ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produces the most solemn resolution of never quitting her father. She even weeps at the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lives it must be only an engagement, which, she flatters herself, might become an additional comfort to him.

With regard to poor Harriet, Emma must still experience much bitter self-reproach and many sorrowful regrets. The best that Emma can devise for her friend, while still avoiding a meeting, and communicating what she has to tell by letter, is to procure for Harriet an invitation to visit Isabella. A few weeks spent in London will furnish some amusement.

Emma’s letter to Harriet, written the first thing before breakfast, is so hard a task that Mr. Knightley, in walking over to breakfast, does not come too soon. He has not left her long when a thick packet from Mrs. Weston encloses Frank Churchill’s promised explanation.

It is a good letter—appealing not unsuccessfully to the candour and indulgence of his reader. The writer dwells eloquently on all the difficulties which beset his devoted attachment to Miss Fairfax, so that if he had not persuaded her to stoop to a secret engagement, he must have gone mad. He confesses ingenuously what had really been the motive of his first visit to Highbury.

He admits that his attentions to Miss Woodhouse were partly for the purpose of assisting in the concealment of his real object. But he insists that, if he had not been convinced of her indifference, he would not have acted as he did. They seemed to understand each other. When he called to take leave of her, he had been on the verge of confessing the truth. He believes she had some suspicion of it. He remembers her telling him at the ball that he ought to be grateful to Mrs. Elton. His heart was in Highbury, and his business was to get his body there as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.

Of the piano so much talked of, he need not say that it was ordered entirely without the knowledge of Miss Fairfax, who would never have allowed him to send it had any choice been given her. Afterwards he had behaved shamefully. Does Mrs. Weston remember the morning at Donwell? He was late. He met Miss Fairfax walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her; but she would not suffer it. He had thought her over-cautious, even cold. He now saw she was perfectly right. “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 precaution 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.”

Even then he was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time; but he went away, determined that she should make the first advances.

In the meantime she closed with the offer of a situation as governess; and wrote to him that, as she felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each, she dissolved it.

The letter reached him on the very morning of his aunt’s death. He answered it within the hour, but in the confusion which followed, his answer, instead of being sent off with the many letters despatched that day, was locked up in his writing-desk, while he trusted that he had said enough, though in but a few lines, to satisfy her. He was surprised at getting no answer till he received a parcel—his own letters returned, with a note stating her surprise at not having heard from him in reply to her last letter, and begging him to forward her letters to Mrs. Smallridge’s, near Bristol.

He knew the name, the place, and instantly saw what she had been about. What was to be done? One thing only. He must speak to his uncle; without his sanction Frank could not hope to be listened to again. And Mr. Churchill, softened by the late event, was earlier reconciled than Frank could have ventured to expect.

Is Mrs. Weston disposed to pity Frank for having to plead his cause with so much at stake? She must not pity him till he reached Highbury, and saw how ill he had made her. He knew when to find her alone. A great deal of very reasonable—very just—displeasure he had to persuade away. But it was done; they were reconciled—dearer, much dearer, than ever.

The letter makes its way to Emma’s heart. Frank had been wrong, but he has suffered, and is very sorry; and he is so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and Emma is so happy herself, that there is no being severe. Could he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands as heartily as ever.

Emma knows Mrs. Weston will like Mr. Knightley to see the letter; and she herself is anxious that he should read it when he comes again. He wishes to take it home with him; but when he has to look over it then and there, he goes through it, supplying a running commentary of caustic, humorous remarks: “Playing a dangerous game,” he observes at one place; and when he comes to the piano, exclaims, “Ah! that was the act of a very young man—too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure.” “I perfectly agree with you, sir,” Mr. Knightley echoes, “you did behave very shamefully.” “What a letter the man writes!” protests the lover, impatient on his own account.

“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him,” interposes Emma.

“Well, there is feeling here,” admits Knightley. “He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill. He has had great faults—faults of inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves; but still, as he is, beyond doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very ready to believe his character will be improved, and acquire from hers the steadiness and delicacy of principle it wants.”

But Mr. Knightley has something else to talk of. “And it is in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with” that he introduces his subject, “how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the happiness of her father.”

Emma’s answer is ready. She can never quit her father.

Mr. Knightley, unselfish in everything, feels this as strongly as herself. But his mind has been at work all the morning to overcome the obstacle. He had first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to Donwell; but Mr. Knightley’s knowledge of his future father-in-law’s habits soon convinced him that this step was impossible. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield! it ought not to be attempted. But Mr. Knightley’s next plan “he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any respect objectionable: it was, that he should be received at Hartfield! that so long as her father’s happiness—in other words, his life—required Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.”

The last solution of the difficulty has never occurred to Emma. “She was sensible of all the affection it evinced. She felt that in quitting Donwell he must be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there would be much—very much—to be borne with.[64] She promised to think of it, and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced that no reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration. He had been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his thoughts to himself.”

“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you ask mine.”

“She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised, moreover, to think of it with the intention of finding it a very good scheme.

“It is remarkable that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded.”

Emma would be too happy but for poor Harriet. “In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is, supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr. Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure; not like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly considerate for everybody, would never deserve to be less worshipped than now; and it really was too much to hope, even of Harriet, that she could be in love with more than three men in one year.”

Mrs. Weston’s friends are made happy by the birth of a daughter to her. Emma and Mr. Knightley compare notes on Miss Weston’s education. He declares he is losing his bitterness against spoiled children; they are disagreeable in infancy, but correct themselves as they grow older.

Emma reminds him she had the advantage of his endeavours to qualify the indulgence of other people. It would be the greatest humanity if he would do as much for poor little Anna Weston, except fall in love with her when she is thirteen.

“How often when you were a girl,” he tells her, “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 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 anything 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.’”

Harriet had answered Emma’s letter, breaking to her the true state of affairs, much as might have been supposed, without reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style, which increased the desirableness of their being separate. It might be only her own consciousness, but it seemed as if an angel only could have been quite without resentment under such a stroke.

But an invitation from Isabella is procured, Harriet finds the excuse of wishing to see a dentist, and Emma has the comfort of getting Harriet conveyed in state, in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage, to Brunswick Square, and established there for a fortnight.

John Knightley replies to his brother’s announcement of his intended marriage, with brotherly congratulations, in which Emma declares he writes like a sensible man. It is very plain he considers the good fortune of the engagement as all on her side, but that he is not without hope of her growing, in time, worthy of Mr. Knightley’s affection.

Mr. Knightley remonstrates like a lover on this inference. He means no such thing; he only means——

“Oh!” she cries, “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.”

The communication of the couple’s purpose is made in the gentlest manner to Mr. Woodhouse. The information gives the poor gentleman a considerable shock. He tries earnestly to dissuade Emma from her intention. “She was reminded more than once of her having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be a great deal better for her to remain single, and told of poor Isabella and poor Miss Taylor. But it would not do. Emma hung about him affectionately and smiled, and said it must be so, and that he must not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages, taking them from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change. But she was not going from Hartfield. She was introducing no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better. Did not he love Mr. Knightley very much? Would not he like to have him always on the spot?”

“Yes, that was all very true; Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should be glad to see him every day; but they did see him every day as it was. Why could not they go on as they had done?”

Mr. Woodhouse cannot soon be reconciled, but at least the matter is broken to him.

Contrast the tender, protecting reverence of the gay and witty Emma Woodhouse to her father’s weakness, with the flippant, bold, offensive disrespect displayed by so many of the silly, ill-bred, unprincipled heroines of modern novels to their despised and insulted fathers.

The proposed marriage has the warmest support from the rest of Emma’s friends—above all, from Isabella and Mrs. Weston. Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in reflections on the perfection of the match in every respect, “was one of the happiest women in the world. If anything could increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have outgrown its first set of caps.”[65]

Mr. Weston walks into Highbury the morning after he has heard the good news, to ascertain if “Jane” had any suspicion of it, and before night it is all over the place. It is, generally speaking, a well-approved match, though Mr. Elton can do no more than hope the young lady’s pride will now be contented, and suppose she has always meant to “catch Knightley;” and Mrs. Elton is forced to cry, “Rather he than I! Poor Knightley!” There will be an end to their pleasant intercourse. No more exploring parties to Donwell made for her. Shocking plan, living together! She knew a family near Maple Grove who had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first quarter.

I must beg Mrs. Elton’s pardon for differing from her, in remarking how far Jane Austen—with her hero and heroine—was above selfish insular prejudices, in contemplating the humane, kindly arrangement which did not fear to unite, in one household, kindred, old and young, of different generations.

Harriet’s visit to London has been protracted to a month’s duration, and Emma is rather anxiously anticipating her friend’s return in company with John Knightley and his wife, when Mr. Knightley walks in one morning, to tell her some news which he will not undertake to define as either good or bad.

She cries, it is good, for she sees him trying not to smile.

“I am afraid,” he said, composing his features, “I am very much afraid, my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it.” He goes on to observe there is one subject on which they differ—does she not recollect it—Harriet Smith?

Emma’s cheeks flush, and she feels afraid for what is coming.

“You are prepared for the worst, I see, and very bad it is. Harriet Smith marries Robert Martin.”

Emma gives a violent start.

It is so, indeed. Mr. Knightley has had it from Robert Martin himself. He left him not half an hour before.

Still Emma sits, the picture of amazement.

Mr. Knightley prepares to try to reconcile her to the fact.

She interrupts him. It is not that such a circumstance can now make her unhappy; but she cannot believe it. He must only mean that Robert Martin intends to propose to Harriet!

“I mean that he has done it, and been accepted.”

“Well!” exclaims Emma; and, oh! the significance of the interjection!—she has to bend her face over her work-basket, to conceal her expression of delight and entertainment, while she begs for particulars.

“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago, and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send to John. He delivered these papers to John at his chambers, and was asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley’s. They were going to take the two eldest boys to Astley’s. The party was to be our brother and sister, Henry, John,—and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused; and my brother asked him to dine with them next day, which he did; and in the course of that visit, as I understand, he found an opportunity of speaking to Harriet, and certainly did not speak in vain. She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is deserving. He came down by yesterday’s coach, and was with me this morning, immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first on my affairs, and then on his own. That is all I can relate of the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much longer history when you see her. She will give you all the minute particulars, which only woman’s language can make interesting. In our communications we deal only in the great. However, I must say that Robert Martin’s heart seemed for him and to me very overflowing; and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that on quitting their box at Astley’s, my brother took charge of Mrs. John Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry; and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith rather uneasy.”

Emma dares hardly speak, lest she should betray her unreasonable happiness; but she ventures to say she has learnt to think Harriet is doing extremely well; only the affair is so sudden, for she received reason lately to believe Harriet Smith more determined against Mr. Martin than ever.

“You ought to know your friend best,” replies Mr. Knightley; “but I should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her.”

Emma cannot help laughing. “Upon my word, I believe you know her quite as well as I do.”

He says he has taken some pains, as Emma must have seen, both for her sake and Robert Martin’s sake—he had reason to believe him as much in love with Harriet as ever—to get better acquainted with Harriet; and he has come to the satisfactory conclusion that she is an artless, amiable girl, with “very good notions, very seriously good principles, placing her happiness in the affections and utility of domestic life.”

No doubt, simple young Harriet Smiths, who are like wax in the hands of their friends, have not died out in the land; but the great thing for them, as for the wisest of their sex, is that they should possess integrity, a high sense of duty, that “good and honest heart,” which brings forth fruit a hundredfold. Having this greatest grace, they can dispense even with the intellectual gifts which have been denied them.

Emma is very serious and humble in her thankfulness; “yet there was no preventing a laugh sometimes. She must laugh at such a close—such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back—such a heart—such a Harriet!”

“Now there would be a pleasure in her returning; everything would be a pleasure; it would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.”

High among Emma’s pleasures is the consciousness that there will soon be no farther need for concealment in any of her relations. Her rejoicing at the prospect of a speedy escape from “disguise, equivocation, mystery—so hateful to her in practice”—ought to be written in letters of gold for an age of sorry romance, which is no true romance, since its foundations are so often laid in deception and double-dealing.

There is a charming conclusion to the second last chapter of “Emma,” in which many of the actors in the story meet accidentally at Randalls. There Emma first sees Frank Churchill after the explanations which have occurred, and after the announcement of their respective marriages. When a few moments of awkwardness have been surmounted, he thanks her for her message of forgiveness; and after they have renewed their friendly alliance on a more secure foundation, his spirits soon rise to their old high level. “Was she not looking well?” he said, confident of Emma’s sympathy, as he turned his eyes towards Jane; “better than she used to do?”

He is soon ready to fix laughing eyes on his companion, as he mentions the return of the Campbells, and names the name of Dixon.

Emma blushes, and forbids its being pronounced in her hearing.

“I can never think of it,” she cries, “without extreme shame.”

“The shame,” he answers, “is all mine—or ought to be”—a wise reservation. Then he asks if it is possible she never had any suspicion, and mentions how near he had once been to telling her everything. He demands Emma’s pity for his being compelled to remain at such a distance from Miss Fairfax, as not to have seen her once before since their reconciliation. Then with a gay, “Oh, by-the-bye,” he hopes Mr. Knightley is well, and returns her congratulations with interest. “He is a man,” said Frank Churchill, “whom I cannot presume to praise.”

Emma is delighted, and wants him to go on in the same style.

No, he is off the next moment to his own concerns and his own Jane. Did Emma ever see such a skin, such smoothness, such delicacy, a most distinguishing complexion, just colour enough for beauty?

“‘I have always admired her complexion,’ replied Emma, archly; ‘but do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so pale?—when we first began to talk of her—have you quite forgotten?’

“‘Oh, no. What an impudent dog I was; how could I dare——’

“But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help saying, ‘I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you had very great amusement in tricking us all. I am sure you had. I am sure it was a consolation to you.’

“‘Oh, no, no, no! How can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most miserable wretch.’

“‘Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us all in. Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same situation. I think there is a little likeness between us.’

“He bowed.

“‘If not in our dispositions,’ she presently added, with a look of true sensibility, ‘there is a likeness in our destiny—the destiny which bids fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.’

“‘True, true,’ he answered warmly. ‘No, not true on your side. You can have no superior. But most true on mine. She is a complete angel. Look at her! Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father. You will be glad to hear’ (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) ‘that my uncle means to give her all my aunt’s jewels. They are to be new set. I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will it not be beautiful in her dark hair?’[66]

“‘Very beautiful indeed,’ replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly that he gratefully burst out, ‘How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent looks! I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.’

“Mrs. Weston is talking of some little alarm she had felt about the child, when she was within half a minute of sending for Mr. Perry.

“Frank Churchill caught the name. ‘Perry!’ said he to Emma, and trying as he spoke to catch Miss Fairfax’s eye, ‘My friend, Mr. Perry. What are they saying about Mr. Perry? Has he been here this morning? and how does he travel now? Has he set up his carriage?’

“Emma soon recollected and understood him; and while she joined in the laugh, it was evident from Jane’s countenance that she too was really hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.

“‘Such an extraordinary dream of mine!’ he cried. ‘I can never think of it without laughing. She hears us; she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her! Do not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter, which sent me the report, is passing under her eye; that the whole blunder is spread before her; that she can attend to nothing else, though pretending to listen to the others?’

“Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet steady voice—‘How you can bear such recollections is astonishing to me! They will sometimes obtrude; but how can you court them?’”

Jane Austen is not in favour of blindness in love. In the room of doting adoration, she makes her men and women feel the nobler, more rational, and infinitely more lasting love which sees all the faults of the person beloved, yet loves on fondly and faithfully, doing love’s best work in helping to remedy the imperfections. George Knightley is capable—not merely of finding fault with Emma, but of sharply reproving her, in his true and tender regard for her. Nay, we suspect there is something which may find even less approval from some critics, in Elizabeth Bennet and Jane Fairfax, at the summit of their happiness, remaining still clear-sighted and impartial enough to perceive the weak points, in characters so different as those of the two heroes, Darcy and Frank Churchill, and to set themselves to remove the flaws, even as the women themselves desire to be taught to recognise and amend their own foibles.

What worthy, enduring, consecrated love it is which stands such wholesome tests!

Neither is Miss Austen greatly on the side of love at first sight. She is a little distrustful of first impressions, and rather prefers—as the wiser and safer course—to give her girls to old and tried friends, who have developed into faithful lovers.

It is Harriet’s turn to look a little foolish when she and Emma meet; but having once owned that she had been presumptuous, silly, and self-deceived, her pain and confusion seem to die away, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the fullest exultation in the present and future—Emma’s unqualified congratulations removing every fear on the score of Harriet’s friend. Harriet is most happy to give every detail of the evening at Astley’s, and the dinner next day.

The fact is, she had always liked Robert Martin, and his continuing to love her has proved, under the circumstances, irresistible.

Emma becomes acquainted with Robert Martin, who is introduced at Hartfield. She feels perfectly satisfied with regard to the future respectability and happiness of her friend. At the same time Harriet’s engagements with the Martins, which draw her more and more from Hartfield, are not to be regretted. Jane Austen, with her uncompromising good sense, adds—“The intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change into a calmer sort of good-will; and fortunately what ought to be, and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural manner.”

But Emma does not fail to attend Harriet to church, in the end of that September, and see her hand bestowed on Robert Martin, with the blessing pronounced by Mr. Elton; while Emma has not a thought to spare for the identity of the officiating clergyman, beyond being engrossed by the reflection that it will probably be the same man who will do a like office for her and Mr. Knightley in the coming month of October.

Jane Fairfax has already quitted Highbury. She is restored to the comforts and refinements of her beloved home with the Campbells. The two Mr. Churchills—uncle and nephew—are also in town, and they are only waiting for the expiration of their first three months’ mourning, to celebrate the event which will remove Jane to preside over the dignified establishment at Enscombe.

After all, Emma and Mr. Knightley owe to a comical accident the power to go on with their share of the triple marriages at the time appointed, without distressing Mr. Woodhouse too much, as Emma recoiled from doing—though she perfectly believed the assurances of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when the catastrophe was over, the distress would soon be over too.

During the period of suspense, by an ill wind which blows somebody good, Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house is robbed of all her turkeys—evidently by the ingenuity of man. “Other poultry yards in the neighbourhood also suffered. Pilfering was house-breaking to Mr. Woodhouse’s fears. He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his son-in-law’s protection, would have been under wretched alarm every night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them protected him and his, Hartfield was safe. But Mr. John Knightley must be in London again, by the end of the first week in November.”

The result is, that with a much more cheerful and voluntary consent than she had ever ventured to hope for from her father, his daughter is able to fix the marriage day.

“The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery and parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby and very inferior to her own. ‘Very little white satin; very few lace veils; a most pitiful business! Selina would stare when she heard of it.’ But in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the ceremony were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.”

In some respects “Emma” stands first among Jane Austen’s novels. In construction it is as nearly as possible perfect. The unparalleled art which, from characters and incidents even simpler and more ordinary than usual, builds up a tale which never for a moment loses its charm and interest, which is made to “grow,” as in real life—the one motive and the one action springing out of the other—the characters developing and ripening in exact proportion, is carried to such a height that critics have been justified in saying—and how rarely is such an assertion warranted in fiction?—that there is not a single chapter which could have been withdrawn without serious injury to the skilfully interwoven threads of the story. For that matter, critics might have gone a good deal further, and asserted that not a scene or a conversation, hardly a paragraph, could have been abstracted or shortened, without marring in a measure the succession of clearly discriminating, exquisitely delicate touches by which the author has done her work.

It is this artistic completeness which makes it so difficult—in a sense so ungracious a task, to condense Jane Austen’s pages, or tamper with them, however carefully and scrupulously. When one thinks by contrast of the disgracefully slovenly—not to say weak and foolish—performances which are often allowed to pass muster as story-telling, it is with mortification and misery for many of the professors of the “craft.”

Besides the incomparable finish which belongs to the author’s later novels, we have a nearly unique power of reading nice varieties of character in “Emma:” whether we turn to the plaintive, cautious Mr. Woodhouse; to John Knightley in his trenchant speeches; to Miss Bates in her pitter-patter of innocent gossip, to Emma in her rash blindness; to Harriet in her sweet silliness; to Frank Churchill, in his boyish enjoyment of stolen waters and bread eaten in secret, and the general mystification of his friends and acquaintances, no less than in his wilful, yet lovable and loyal passion for Jane Fairfax; to Mrs. Elton in her vain airs and clamorous self-assertion; to Mr. Knightley in his unpretending, kindly manliness.

Footnotes:

[45] Written in 1815-16.

[46] What a capital picture, of an amiable rich man’s bondage.

[47] Are old abbeys so common in Hampshire that Jane Austen should have made two of her country-houses abbeys?

[48] The habit, now gone out of fashion, of having grown-up parlour-boarders in schools, rendered them more like homes for young people of all ages.

[49] These old genial suppers have vanished, being crowded out of existence by late dinners, which are very different meals.

[50] We can, however, imagine Harriet’s showing that book, with lingering pride and pleasure, to her grandchildren.

[51] The more convivial habits of the period peep out here and there in Jane Austen’s novels.

[52] Disingenuous, mocking Emma!

[53] In reading Jane Austen’s novels one is carried back to the time when good playing on the piano, or “the instrument” as it is frequently called, was held, in the higher classes, as it is now in much lower grades, a crowning mark of a liberal education in a girl. Yet Jane Austen herself fell short of this attainment, and she almost invariably makes her heroines—as in the experiences of Elizabeth Bennet, Emma Woodhouse, Catherine Morland, and Fanny Price—either to have failed in the duty of practising, so as not to have acquired more than a moderate proficiency in music, or else to have been deficient in musical taste or deprived of musical education.

[54] I have already said that Jane Austen wastes no time in descriptions of places; yet she often contrives to suggest so much in a few lines, that her pleasant, homely English scenes, no less than her life-like characters, rise vividly before the mind. That briefest description of Abbey Mill Farm—comfortable and tidy, with the short, straight walk between the apple-trees up to the front door—does its business thoroughly. I have seen more than one such cosy, trim, old-fashioned farmhouse, which has brought the exclamation to my lips, “That was where Harriet Smith visited the Martins.”

[55] I think it was Archbishop Whately who said, apropos of Jane Austen’s novels, that so far from its being easy to represent the simplicity and folly which, like poverty, we have always with us, so as to divert a reader, it demands nothing short of genius for the task.

[56] Already, in the interval between the writing of “Pride and Prejudice” and of “Emma,” the constant use of men’s surnames in conversation was going out in good society.

[57] I have heard that a great modern statesman, who takes some relaxation in reading novels, and who is an ardent admirer of Jane Austen, is specially in love with Mrs. Elton. Her portrait is his favourite in this wonderful picture-gallery.

[58] In the course of the conversation, Jane Austen puts into Jane Fairfax’s mouth a strong expression of admiration for the post-office arrangements, with their regularity and despatch. Yet these were the days of heavily-taxed letters and delayed conveyance by coach. What would Jane Austen have thought of the penny post, with its multiplied responsibilities and requirements, to which railway celerity is given? and still the system bears the strain, and admirably fulfils the intention of its founder.

[59] Morning walks, “taken fasting,” are now, we may be thankful, an utterly exploded prescription for delicate men and women.

[60] In how many country houses in England is spruce beer to be found to-day?

[61] The position of Frank Churchill—dependent on his uncle and aunt, bound to humour their whims and wait on their pleasure—seems never to have struck Jane Austen as unmanly and undesirable.

[62] A striking illustration of what a good woman must suffer from such a false step as that which Jane Fairfax had taken.

[63] Emma has as much trouble in convincing her friends that she is not attached to Frank Churchill, as Elizabeth Bennet found in persuading her relations that she returned the affection of Darcy.

[64] Mr. Knightley’s quiet superiority to public opinion in making such a suggestion, is another fine point in a fine character.

[65] Babies’ tiny caps have disappeared, like some other articles of costume in Emma’s day. What would Mrs. Weston have thought of the bald little polls which are now fearlessly exposed by mothers and nurses?

[66]

“They’ve robed that maid so poor and pale

In silks and samites rare;

And pearls for drops of frozen hail

Are glistening in her hair.”