Volume III: Chapter XIV

by Jane Austen

　　What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the housefrom what she had brought out!--she had then been only daring to hopefor a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisiteflutter of happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believedmust still be greater when the flutter should have passed away.

　　They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often it had been collected!--and how often had her eyes fallenon the same shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautifuleffect of the western sun!--But never in such a state of spirits,never in any thing like it; and it was with difficulty that she couldsummon enough of her usual self to be the attentive lady of the house,or even the attentive daughter.

　　Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against himin the breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and soanxiously hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.--Could hehave seen the heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs;but without the most distant imagination of the impending evil,without the slightest perception of any thing extraordinary inthe looks or ways of either, he repeated to them very comfortablyall the articles of news he had received from Mr. Perry, and talkedon with much self-contentment, totally unsuspicious of what theycould have told him in return.

　　As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma's fever continued;but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillisedand subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which wasthe tax for such an evening, she found one or two such very seriouspoints to consider, as made her feel, that even her happinessmust have some alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not bealone without feeling the full weight of their separate claims;and how to guard the comfort of both to the utmost, was the question.With respect to her father, it was a question soon answered.She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley would ask; but a very shortparley with her own heart produced the most solemn resolutionof never quitting her father.--She even wept over the idea of it,as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an engagement;but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger ofdrawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.--How to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare her from any unnecessary pain; how to makeher any possible atonement; how to appear least her enemy?--On these subjects, her perplexity and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and again through every bitterreproach and sorrowful regret that had ever surrounded it.--She could only resolve at last, that she would still avoid ameeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by letter;that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed justnow for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitationfor her to Brunswick Square.--Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.--She did not think it in Harriet's nature to escape being benefitedby novelty and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.--At any rate, it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself,from whom every thing was due; a separation for the present; an avertingof the evil day, when they must all be together again.

　　She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employmentwhich left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley,in walking up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon;and half an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground againwith him, literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstateher in a proper share of the happiness of the evening before.

　　He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to havethe slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letterwas brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessedwhat it must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.--She was now in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wantedno explanations, she wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding any thing he wrote, she was sure she wasincapable of it.--It must be waded through, however. She openedthe packet; it was too surely so;--a note from Mrs. Weston to herself,ushered in the letter from Frank to Mrs. Weston.

　　"I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwardingto you the enclosed. I know what thorough justice you willdo it, and have scarcely a doubt of its happy effect.--I thinkwe shall never materially disagree about the writer again;but I will not delay you by a long preface.--We are quite well.--This letter has been the cure of all the little nervousness I havebeen feeling lately.--I did not quite like your looks on Tuesday,but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never own beingaffected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east wind.--I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesdayafternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearinglast night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill."Yours ever,"A. W."

　　[To Mrs. Weston.]

　　WINDSOR-JULY.

　　MY DEAR MADAM,

　　"If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be expected;but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of evenall your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent.My courage rises while I write. It is very difficult for theprosperous to be humble. I have already met with such successin two applications for pardon, that I may be in danger of thinkingmyself too sure of yours, and of those among your friends who havehad any ground of offence.--You must all endeavour to comprehendthe exact nature of my situation when I first arrived at Randalls;you must consider me as having a secret which was to be keptat all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place myselfin a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to think it a right,I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below,and casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly;my difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too wellknown to require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail,before we parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright femalemind in the creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say,what was your hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects,sudden bursts, perseverance and weariness, health and sickness.Every possibility of good was before me, and the first of blessingssecured, in obtaining her promises of faith and correspondence.If you need farther explanation, I have the honour, my dear madam,of being your husband's son, and the advantage of inheritinga disposition to hope for good, which no inheritance of housesor lands can ever equal the value of.--See me, then, under thesecircumstances, arriving on my first visit to Randalls;--and here Iam conscious of wrong, for that visit might have been sooner paid.You will look back and see that I did not come till Miss Fairfaxwas in Highbury; and as you were the person slighted, you willforgive me instantly; but I must work on my father's compassion,by reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house,so long I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour,during the very happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not,I hope, lay me open to reprehension, excepting on one point.And now I come to the principal, the only important part of myconduct while belonging to you, which excites my own anxiety,or requires very solicitous explanation. With the greatest respect,and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss Woodhouse; my fatherperhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest humiliation.--A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his opinion,and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviourto Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--In order to assist a concealment so essential to me, I was ledon to make more than an allowable use of the sort of intimacyinto which we were immediately thrown.--I cannot deny that MissWoodhouse was my ostensible object--but I am sure you will believethe declaration, that had I not been convinced of her indifference,I would not have been induced by any selfish views to go on.--Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is, she never gave methe idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and that she wasperfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me, was as muchmy conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with an easy,friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation,those attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether MissWoodhouse began really to understand me before the expiration ofthat fortnight, I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her,I remember that I was within a moment of confessing the truth,and I then fancied she was not without suspicion; but I have nodoubt of her having since detected me, at least in some degree.--She may not have surmised the whole, but her quickness musthave penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find,whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints,that it did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gaveme hints of it. I remember her telling me at the ball, that Iowed Mrs. Elton gratitude for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--I hope this history of my conduct towards her will be admittedby you and my father as great extenuation of what you saw amiss.While you considered me as having sinned against Emma Woodhouse,I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and procurefor me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes of thatsaid Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly affection,as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as myself.--Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight, you havenow a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to getmy body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--Of the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say,that its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who wouldnever have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--The delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement,my dear madam, is much beyond my power of doing justice to.You will soon, I earnestly hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--No description can describe her. She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never was there a human creature who wouldso designedly suppress her own merit.--Since I began this letter,which will be longer than I foresaw, I have heard from her.--She gives a good account of her own health; but as she never complains,I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion of her looks.I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread of the visit.Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without delay;I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how fewminutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state:and I am not much better yet; still insane either from happinessor misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with,of her excellence and patience, and my uncle's generosity, I am madwith joy: but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her,and how little I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger.If I could but see her again!--But I must not propose it yet.My uncle has been too good for me to encroach.--I must still addto this long letter. You have not heard all that you ought to hear.I could not give any connected detail yesterday; but the suddenness,and, in one light, the unseasonableness with which the affair burst out,needs explanation; for though the event of the 26th ult., as youwill conclude, immediately opened to me the happiest prospects,I should not have presumed on such early measures, but from thevery particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to lose.I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she would havefelt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and refinement.--But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered into withthat woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off abruptly,to recollect and compose myself.--I have been walking over the country,and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of my letterwhat it ought to be.--It is, in fact, a most mortifying retrospectfor me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that my mannersto Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly blameable.She disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.--My plea ofconcealing the truth she did not think sufficient.--She was displeased;I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand occasions,unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even cold.But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and subduedmy spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should haveescaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.--We quarrelled.--Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?--There every littledissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late;I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her,but she would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me,which I then thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothingin it but a very natural and consistent degree of discretion.While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was behaving onehour with objectionable particularity to another woman, was sheto be consenting the next to a proposal which might have madeevery previous caution useless?--Had we been met walking togetherbetween 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 bysuch conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect of her,and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have beenimpossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke herresentment in a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.--In short, my dear madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side,abominable on mine; and I returned the same evening to Richmond,though I might have staid with you till the next morning,merely because I would be as angry with her as possible. Even then,I was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time;but I was the injured person, injured by her coldness, and I wentaway determined that she should make the first advances.--I shallalways congratulate myself that you were not of the Box Hill party.Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly suppose you wouldever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon her appearsin the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she found Iwas really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of thatofficious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her,by the bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred.I must not quarrel with a spirit of forbearance which has beenso richly extended towards myself; but, otherwise, I should loudlyprotest against the share of it which that woman has known.--"Jane," indeed!--You will observe that I have not yet indulged myselfin calling her by that name, even to you. Think, then, what I musthave endured in hearing it bandied between the Eltons with allthe vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the insolence ofimaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon have done.--She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me entirely,and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet again.--She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and miseryto each: she dissolved it.--This letter reached me on the verymorning of my poor aunt's death. I answered it within an hour;but from the confusion of my mind, and the multiplicity of businessfalling on me at once, my answer, instead of being sent with allthe many other letters of that day, was locked up in my writing-desk;and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but a few lines,to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.--I was ratherdisappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily;but I made excuses for her, and was too busy, and--may I add?--too cheerful in my views to be captious.--We removed to Windsor;and two days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own lettersall returned!--and a few lines at the same time by the post,stating her extreme surprize at not having had the smallest replyto her last; and adding, that as silence on such a point couldnot be misconstrued, and as it must be equally desirable to bothto have every subordinate arrangement concluded as soon as possible,she now sent me, by a safe conveyance, all my letters, and requested,that if I could not directly command hers, so as to send themto Highbury within a week, I would forward them after that periodto her at--: in short, the full direction to Mr. Smallridge's,near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the name, the place,I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had been doing.It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of characterwhich I knew her to possess; and the secrecy she had maintained,as to any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptiveof its anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemedto threaten me.--Imagine the shock; imagine how, till I had actuallydetected my own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.--What was to be done?--One thing only.--I must speak to my uncle.Without his sanction I could not hope to be listened to again.--I spoke; circumstances were in my favour; the late event had softenedaway his pride, and he was, earlier than I could have anticipated,wholly reconciled and complying; and could say at last, poor man!with a deep sigh, that he wished I might find as much happinessin the marriage state as he had done.--I felt that it would beof a different sort.--Are you disposed to pity me for what I musthave suffered in opening the cause to him, for my suspense whileall was at stake?--No; do not pity me till I reached Highbury,and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her wan,sick looks.--I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from myknowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chanceof finding her alone.--I was not disappointed; and at last I wasnot disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great dealof very reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away.But it is done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever,and no moment's uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, mydear madam, I will release you; but I could not conclude before.A thousand and a thousand thanks for all the kindness you haveever shewn me, and ten thousand for the attentions your heartwill dictate towards her.--If you think me in a way to be happierthan I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.--Miss W. calls methe child of good fortune. I hope she is right.--In one respect,my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribemyself,Your obliged and affectionate Son,F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.