Emma and the Werewolves (66 page)

Your obliged and affectionate Son,

F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.

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Chapter XV

T
his letter must make
its way to Emma’s
feelings. She was obliged, in spite of her previous determination
to the contrary, to do it all the justice that Mrs. Weston
foretold. As soon as she came to her own name, it was irresistible;
every line relating to herself was interesting, and almost every
line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject could still
maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard for the
writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of love
must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone
through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he
had been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had
supposed—and he had suffered, and was very sorry—and he was so
grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and
she was so happy herself, that there was no being severe; and could
he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands with him as
heartily as ever.

She thought so well of the letter, that when
Mr. Knightley came again, she desired him to read it. She was sure
of Mrs. Weston’s wishing it to be communicated; especially to one,
who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so much to blame in his
conduct.

“
I shall be very glad to
look it over,” said he; “but it seems long. I will take it home
with me at night.”

But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to
call in the evening, and she must return it by him.

“
I would rather be talking
to you,” he replied; “but as it seems a matter of justice, it shall
be done.”

He began—stopping, however,
almost directly to say, “Had I been offered the sight of one of
this gentleman’s letters to his mother-in-law a few months ago,
Emma, it would not have been taken with such
indifference.”

He proceeded a little farther, reading to
himself; and then, with a smile, observed, “Humph! a fine
complimentary opening: But it is his way. One man’s style must not
be the rule of another’s. We will not be severe.”

“
It will be natural for
me,” he added shortly afterwards, “to speak my opinion aloud as I
read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you. It will not be
so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it—”

“
Not at all. I should wish
it.”

Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with
greater alacrity.

“
He trifles here,” said he,
“as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong, and has nothing
rational to urge. Bad. He ought not to have formed the engagement.
‘His father’s disposition:’ — he is unjust, however, to his father.
Mr. Weston’s sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright and
honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort
before he endeavoured to gain it. Very true; he did not come till
Miss Fairfax was here.”

“
And I have not forgotten,”
said Emma, “how sure you were that he might have come sooner if he
would. You pass it over very handsomely—but you were perfectly
right.”

“
I was not quite impartial
in my judgment, Emma: but yet, I think—had you not been in the
case—I should still have distrusted him.”

When he came to Miss
Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it aloud—all that
related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the head; a word
or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as the
subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady
reflection, thus— “Very bad—though it might have been worse.
Playing a most dangerous game. Too much indebted to the event for
his acquittal. No judge of his own manners by you. Always deceived
in fact by his own wishes, and regardless of little besides his own
convenience. Fancying you to have fathomed his secret. Natural
enough! his own mind full of intrigue, that he should suspect it in
others. Mystery; Finesse—how they pervert the understanding! My
Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more and more the beauty
of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each
other?”

Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of
sensibility on Harriet’s account, which she could not give any
sincere explanation of.

“
You had better go on,”
said she.

He did so, but very soon
stopt again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That was the act of a
very, very young man, one too young to consider whether the
inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A
boyish scheme, indeed! I cannot comprehend a man’s wishing to give
a woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather
dispense with; and he did know that she would have prevented the
instrument’s coming if she could.”

After this, he made some progress without
any pause. Frank Churchill’s confession of having behaved
shamefully was the first thing to call for more than a word in
passing.

“
I perfectly agree with
you, sir,” was then his remark. “You did behave very shamefully.
You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through what
immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his
persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax’s sense of
right, he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad. He had
induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of
extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his
first object to prevent her from suffering unnecessarily. She must
have had much more to contend with, in carrying on the
correspondence, than he could. He should have respected even
unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were all
reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she
had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear
that she should have been in such a state of
punishment.”

Emma knew that he was now
getting to the Box Hill party, and grew uncomfortable. Her own
behaviour had been so very improper! She was deeply ashamed, and a
little afraid of his next look. It was all read, however, steadily,
attentively, and without the smallest remark; and, excepting one
momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear of giving
pain—no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.

“
There is no saying much
for the delicacy of our good friends, the Eltons,” was his next
observation. “His feelings are natural. What! actually resolve to
break with him entirely! She felt the engagement to be a source of
repentance and misery to each—she dissolved it. What a view this
gives of her sense of his behaviour! Well, he must be a most
extraordinary—”

“
Nay, nay, read on. You
will find how very much he suffers.”

“
I hope he does,” replied
Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. “‘Smallridge!’ —What
does this mean? What is all this?”

“
She had engaged to go as
governess to Mrs. Smallridge’s children—a dear friend of Mrs.
Elton’s—a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the bye, I wonder how
Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?”

“
Say nothing, my dear Emma,
while you oblige me to read—not even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page
more. I shall soon have done. What a letter the man
writes!”

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

“
Well, there is feeling
here. He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill. Certainly,
I can have no doubt of his being fond of her. ‘Dearer, much dearer
than ever.’ I hope he may long continue to feel all the value of
such a reconciliation. He is a very liberal thanker, with his
thousands and tens of thousands. ‘Happier than I deserve.’ Come, he
knows himself there. ‘Miss Woodhouse calls me the child of good
fortune.’ —Those were Miss Woodhouse’s words, were they? And a fine
ending—and there is the letter. The child of good fortune! That was
your name for him, was it?”

“
You do not appear so well
satisfied with his letter as I am; but still you must, at least I
hope you must, think the better of him for it. I hope it does him
some service with you.”

“
Yes, certainly it does. 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 a
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 improve, and acquire from hers
the steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now,
let me talk to you of something else. I have another person’s
interest at present so much at heart, that I cannot think any
longer about Frank Churchill. Ever since I left you this morning,
Emma, my mind has been hard at work on one subject.”

The subject followed; it
was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr.
Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with, how to be
able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the happiness of
her father. Emma’s answer was ready at the first word. “While her
dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible for
her. She could never quit him.” Part only of this answer, however,
was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr.
Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of
any other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it
over most deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce
Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to
believe it feasible, but his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not
suffer him to deceive himself long; and now he confessed his
persuasion, that such a transplantation would be a risk of her
father’s comfort, perhaps even of his life, which must not be
hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield! No, he felt that it
ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the
sacrifice of this, 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.

Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had
already had her own passing thoughts. Like him, she had tried the
scheme and rejected it; but such an alternative as this had not
occurred to her. 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. 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. Think she must of the possible
difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only gave herself a
saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in detecting
the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley’s marrying
Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had wholly
imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt.

This proposal of his, this
plan of marrying and continuing at Hartfield—the more she
contemplated it, the more pleasing it became. His evils seemed to
lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual good to
outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the
periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her! Such a partner in
all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of
melancholy!

She would have been too happy but for poor
Harriet; but every blessing of her own seemed to involve and
advance the sufferings of her friend, who must now be even excluded
from Hartfield. The delightful family party which Emma was securing
for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere charitable caution, be kept
at a distance from. She would be a loser in every way. Emma could
not deplore her future absence as any deduction from her own
enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a dead weight
than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a
peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a
state of unmerited punishment.

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 every body, 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.

* * * *

Chapter XVI