Emma and the Werewolves (11 page)

He had frightened her a little about Mr.
Elton; but when she considered that Mr. Knightley could not have
observed him as she had done, neither with the interest, nor (she
must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of Mr. Knightley’s
pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such a question
as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she was
able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully
to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might
have heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever
done, and Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate
disposition as to money matters; he might naturally be rather
attentive than otherwise to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not
make due allowance for the influence of a strong passion at war
with all interested motives. Mr. Knightley saw no such passion, and
of course thought nothing of its effects; but she saw too much of
it to feel a doubt of its overcoming any hesitations that a
reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and more than a
reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure did not
belong to Mr. Elton.

Harriet’s cheerful look and manner
established hers: she came back, not to think of Mr. Martin, but to
talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been telling her something, which
she repeated immediately with great delight. Mr. Perry had been to
Mrs. Goddard’s to attend a injured child who had been playing in
the woods outside the school and received a viscous shock from a
rabbit whom he had taken to be the beast of Highbury coming upon
him and took a nasty fall tumbling heads over heels down a bank
leaving him a mess of cuts and bruises. Miss Nash had seen him, and
he had told Miss Nash, that as he was coming back yesterday from
Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, armed with a musket strapped to
his horse’s side, and found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton
was actually on his road to London, and not meaning to return till
the morrow, though it was the whist-club night, which he had been
never known to miss before; and Mr. Perry had remonstrated with him
about it, and told him how shabby it was in him, their best player,
to absent himself, and tried very much to persuade him to put off
his journey only one day. Mr. Perry also begged with him not to
travel alone with such dangers about, armed or not, but it would
not do; Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a
very particular way indeed, that he was going on business which he
would not put off for any inducement or threat in the world; and
something about a very enviable commission, and being the bearer of
something exceedingly precious. Mr. Perry could not quite
understand him, but he was very sure there must be a lady in the
case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton only looked very conscious
and smiling, and rode off in great spirits. Miss Nash had told her
all this, and had talked a great deal more about Mr. Elton; and
said, looking so very significantly at her, “that she did not
pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only knew
that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the
luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not
his equal for beauty or agreeableness.”

As night fell over Highbury, Mr. Elton
traveled on as he was watched over by two pairs of eyes from the
darkness, one set yellow and burning with rage and hunger, the
other determined and observant. The creature to which the yellow
orbs belonged sniffed the air of the night and caught the scent of
the enemy of its pack nearby and thus Mr. Elton’s life was spared.
It withdrew and bounded away into the night, leaving Mr. Knightley
in the bushes on the other side of the road undisturbed.

Knightley felt its departure signaled by the
feeling of the holy power draining from him. He breathed a sigh of
relief and swore off the vengeance he had planned, content that no
life had been taken this evening. The time would come when he would
indeed go after them all at once, but that was not yet.

The walk back to his home was a long and
tiring one. No sooner did he make it through the door did he
collapse on his bed, still dressed in the clothes of the day, to
find much needed sleep.

* * * *

Chapter IX

M
r.
Knightley might quarrel
with her, but Emma
could not quarrel with herself. He was so much displeased, that it
was longer than usual before he came to Hartfield again; and when
they did meet, his grave looks shewed that she was not
forgiven.
He seemed more himself and this
made the looks all the worse.
She was
sorry, but could not repent. On the contrary, her plans and
proceedings were more and more justified and endeared to her by the
general appearances of the next few days.

The Picture, elegantly
framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr. Elton’s return, and
being hung over the mantelpiece of the common sitting-room, he got
up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences of admiration
just as he ought; and as for Harriet’s feelings, they were visibly
forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as her
youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied
of Mr. Martin’s being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished
a contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the
latter.

Her views of improving her
little friend’s mind, by a great deal of useful reading and
conversation, had never yet led to more than a few first chapters,
and the intention of going on to-morrow. It was much easier to chat
than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination range and
work at Harriet’s fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge her
comprehension or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary
pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision
she was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and
transcribing all the riddles of every sort that she could meet
with, into a thin quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her
friend, and ornamented with ciphers and trophies.

In this age of literature, such collections
on a very grand scale are not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at
Mrs. Goddard’s, had written out at least three hundred; and
Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it from her, hoped, with
Miss Woodhouse’s help, to get a great many more. Emma assisted with
her invention, memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote a very pretty
hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first order, in
form as well as quantity.

Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested
in the business as the girls, and tried very often to recollect
something worth their putting in. “So many clever riddles as there
used to be when he was young—he wondered he could not remember
them! but he hoped he should in time.” And it always ended in
“Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.”

His good friend Perry, too, whom he had
spoken to on the subject, did not at present recollect any thing of
the riddle kind; but he had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and
as he went about so much, something, he thought, might come from
that quarter.

It was by no means his
daughter’s wish that the intellects of Highbury in general should
be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one whose
assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good
enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect; and she
had the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his
recollections; and at the same time, as she could perceive, most
earnestly careful that nothing ungallant, nothing that did not
breathe a compliment to the sex should pass his lips. They owed to
him their two or three politest puzzles; and the joy and exultation
with which at last he recalled, and rather sentimentally recited,
that well-known charade,

My first doth affliction denote,

Which my second is destin’d to feel

And my whole is the best antidote

That affliction to soften and heal.

made her quite sorry to acknowledge that
they had transcribed it some pages ago already.

“
Why will not you write one
yourself for us, Mr. Elton?” said she; “that is the only security
for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to you.”

“
Oh no! he had never
written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his life. The
stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse” —he stopt
a moment— “or Miss Smith could inspire him.”

The very next day however
produced some proof of inspiration. He called for a few moments,
just to leave a piece of paper on the table containing, as he said,
a charade, which a friend of his had addressed to a young lady, the
object of his admiration, but which, from his manner, Emma was
immediately convinced must be his own.

“
I do not offer it for Miss
Smith’s collection,” said he. “Being my friend’s, I have no right
to expose it in any degree to the public eye, but perhaps you may
not dislike looking at it.”

The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet,
which Emma could understand. There was deep consciousness about
him, and he found it easier to meet her eye than her friend’s. He
was gone the next moment: after another moment’s pause,

“
Take it,” said Emma,
smiling, and pushing the paper towards Harriet, “it is for you.
Take your own.”

But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not
touch it; and Emma, never loth to be first, was obliged to examine
it herself.

To Miss—

CHARADE.

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!

She cast her eye over it,
pondered, caught the meaning, read it through again to be quite
certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then passing it to
Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while Harriet
was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and
dulness, “Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse
charades. Courtship—a very good hint. I give you credit for it.
This is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly— ‘Pray, Miss
Smith, give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade
and my intentions in the same glance.’

May its approval beam in that soft eye!

Harriet exactly. Soft is
the very word for her eye—of all epithets, the justest that could
be given.

Thy ready wit the word will soon supply.

Humph—Harriet’s ready wit!
All the better. A man must be very much in love, indeed, to
describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the benefit of
this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life you
would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade
indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis
soon now.”

She was obliged to break off from these very
pleasant observations, which were otherwise of a sort to run into
great length, by the eagerness of Harriet’s wondering
questions.

“
What can it be, Miss
Woodhouse? what can it be? I have not an idea—I cannot guess it in
the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find it out, Miss
Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it
kingdom? I wonder who the friend was—and who could be the young
lady. Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman?

And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.

Can it be Neptune?

Behold him there, the monarch of the
seas!

Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh,
no! shark is only one syllable. It must be very clever, or he would
not have brought it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever
find it out?”

“
Mermaids and sharks!
Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking of? Where would be
the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend upon a
mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen.

For Miss —————, read Miss
Smith.

My first displays the wealth and pomp of
kings,

Lords of the earth! their luxury and
ease.

That is court.

Another view of man, my second brings;

Behold him there, the monarch of the
seas!

That is ship; plain as it can be. Now for
the cream.

But ah! united, (courtship, you know,) 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.

A very proper compliment!
and then follows the application, which I think, my dear Harriet,
you cannot find much difficulty in comprehending. Read it in
comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of its being written for
you and to you.”

Harriet could not long resist so delightful
a persuasion. She read the concluding lines, and was all flutter
and happiness. She could not speak. But she was not wanted to
speak. It was enough for her to feel. Emma spoke for her.