Emma and the Werewolves (2 page)

“
My dear, how am I to get
so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could not walk half so
far.”

Emma knew it was more than just the walk
that concerned him about her proposal but she had no intention of
giving the troubles of Highbury the honor of conversation.

“
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 it for such a little way; and
where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our
visit?”

“
You worry too much,
father. We would all be safe and they are to be put into Mr.
Weston’s stable, papa. You know we have settled all 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!”

“
I am very glad I did think
of her. It was very lucky, for I would not have had poor James
think himself slighted upon any account; and I am sure she will
make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken girl; I
have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always
curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when
you have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns
the lock of the door the right way and never bangs it.

I am sure she will be an excellent servant;
and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor to have somebody
about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes over to see
his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will be able
to tell her how we all are.”

Emma spared no exertions to maintain this
happier flow of ideas, and hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get
her father tolerably through the evening, and be attacked by no
regrets but her own. The backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor
immediately afterwards walked in and made it 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 particularly connected with it,
as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived about a mile
from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome, and at
this time more welcome than usual, claiming to have come directly
from their mutual connexions in London. His look this morning was
far from that of his normal appearance. He clothes looked as if
they had been thrown on and his hair a mess. Emma had to confess to
herself there appeared to be caked mud within it. Though his
appearance was anything but that of a gentleman, he remained one
through his actions. His manor was as pleasant as always. He
explained away his looks with a simple tale of an unforseen
rainstorm that had came out of nowhere the night before and a rough
tumble down a hill on his way home. He had been in such a rush to
make their company, he had hurried on to them as fast as he could.
Such behavior was out of the norm for him but flattering very much
so to her father and as thus, Emma took it well. Knightley owned
his error well. He had returned, after some days’ absence, and now
hurried up to Hartfield to say that all were well in Brunswick
Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated Mr. Woodhouse for
some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, though a fatigued
one to-day, which always did him good; and his many inquiries after
“poor Isabella” and her children were answered most satisfactorily.
When this was over, Mr. Woodhouse gratefully observed, “It is very
kind of you, Mr. Knightley, to come out at this early hour to call
upon us. I am afraid you must have had a shocking walk.”

“
Indeed it was, sir. It was
a beautiful night of moonlight, and so dreadfully wet that I find
myself most grateful for your fire.”

“
But you must have found it
very damp and dirty. I wish you may not catch cold.”

“
Dirty, sir! Look at my
shoes. They are a mess as am I but none the less, I am glad to be
paying this visit upon you to ensure that you are well.”

“
Well! that is not
surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain here. It rained
dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at breakfast and
more during the night. I wanted them to put off the wedding
yesterday but they proceeded anyway, and rightly so.”

“
By the bye—I have not
wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what sort of joy you
must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my
congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did
you all behave? Who cried most?”

“
Ah! poor Miss Taylor! ‘Tis
a sad business.”

“
Poor Mr. and Miss
Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say ‘poor Miss
Taylor.’ I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it comes
to the question of dependence or independence!—At any rate, it must
be better to have only one to please than two.”

“
Especially when one of
those two is such a fanciful, troublesome creature!” said Emma
playfully. “That is what you have in your head, I know—and what you
would certainly say if my father were not by.”

“
I believe it is very true,
my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with a sigh. “I am afraid I
am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”

“
My dearest papa! You do
not think I could mean you, or suppose Mr. Knightley to mean you.
What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only myself. Mr. Knightley
loves to find fault with me, you know—in a joke—it is all a joke.
We always say what we like to one another.”

Mr. Knightley, in fact, was
one of the few people who could see faults in Emma Woodhouse, and
the only one who ever told her of them: and though this was not
particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew it would be so
much less so to her father, that she would not have him really
suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by
every body.

“
Emma knows I never flatter
her,” said Mr. Knightley, “but I meant no reflection on any body.
Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons to please; she will
now have but one. The chances are that she must be a
gainer.”

“
Well,” said Emma, willing
to let it pass, “you want to hear about the wedding; and I shall be
happy to tell you, for we all behaved charmingly. Every body was
punctual, every body in their best looks: not a tear, and hardly a
long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that we were going to be
only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every
day.”

“
Dear Emma bears every
thing so well,” said her father. “But, Mr. Knightley, she is really
very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am sure she will miss
her more than she thinks for.”

Emma turned away her head, divided between
tears and smiles. “It is impossible that Emma should not miss such
a companion,” said Mr. Knightley. “We should not like her so well
as we do, sir, if we could suppose it; but she knows how much the
marriage is to Miss Taylor’s advantage; she knows how very
acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor’s time of life, to be settled
in a home of her own, and how important to her to be secure of a
comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow herself to feel
so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor must be glad
to have her so happily married.”

“
And you have forgotten one
matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very considerable one—that
I made the match myself. I made the match, you know, four years
ago; and 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 any thing.”

Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her
father fondly replied, “Ah! my dear, I wish you would not make
matches and foretell things, for whatever you say always comes to
pass. Pray do not make any more matches. My life is full of enough
excitement and worry already.”

“
I promise you to make none
for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for other people. It is the
greatest amusement in the world and such a wonderful distraction
from these dreadful times in Highbury! And after such success, you
know! Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry again. Oh
dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who
seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly
occupied either in his business in town or among his friends here,
always acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful—Mr. Weston need
not spend a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it.
Oh no! Mr. Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people
even talked of a promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of
the son and the uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn
nonsense was talked on the subject, but I believed none of
it.

“
Ever since the day—about
four years ago—that Miss Taylor and I met with him in Broadway
Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted away with so
much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from Farmer
Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match
from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this
instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off
match-making.”

“
I do not understand what
you mean by ‘success,’” said Mr. Knightley. “Success supposes
endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately spent, if you
have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring about this
marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady’s mind! But if,
which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it,
means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day,
‘I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr.
Weston were to marry her,’ and saying it again to yourself every
now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your
merit? What are you proud of? You made a lucky guess; and that is
all that can be said.”

“
And have you never known
the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess? I pity you. I thought
you cleverer—for, depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely
luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my poor word
‘success,’ which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so
entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty
pictures; but I think there may be a third—a something between the
do-nothing and the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston’s
visits here, and given many little encouragements, and smoothed
many little matters, it might not have come to any thing after all.
I think you must know Hartfield enough to comprehend
that.”

“
A straightforward,
open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational, unaffected woman like
Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their own concerns. You
are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than good to them,
by interference.”

“
Emma never thinks of
herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined Mr. Woodhouse,
understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not make any more
matches; they are silly things, and break up one’s family circle
grievously.”

“
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. There is nobody in Highbury who deserves
him—and he has been here a whole year, and 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 I have of doing him a service.”

“
Mr. Elton is a very pretty
young man, to be sure, and a very good young man, and I have a
great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any attention, my
dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will be a
much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to
meet him.”

“
With a great deal of
pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley, laughing, “and I
agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better thing.
Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish
and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon
it, a man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of
himself.”

And with that, Knightley
hurried away to business he professed he must he attend to else
where.

* * * *

Chapter II

M
r.
Weston was a
native of Highbury, and born
of a respectable family, which for the last two or three
generations had been rising into gentility and property. He had
received a good education, but, on succeeding early in life to a
small independence, had become indisposed for any of the more
homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged, and had
satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering
into the militia of his county, then embodied.

Captain Weston was a general favourite; and
when the chances of his military life had introduced him to Miss
Churchill, of a great Yorkshire family, and Miss Churchill fell in
love with him, nobody was surprized, except her brother and his
wife, who had never seen him, and who were full of pride and
importance, which the connexion would offend.

Miss Churchill, however,
being of age, and with the full command of her fortune—though her
fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate—was not to be
dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the infinite
mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with due
decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much
happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had
a husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every
thing due to her in return for the great goodness of being in love
with him; but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the
best. She had resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of
her brother, but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at
that brother’s unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of
her former home. They lived beyond their income, but still it was
nothing in comparison of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her
husband, but she wanted at once to be the wife of Captain Weston,
and Miss Churchill of Enscombe.