Emma in Love (11 page)

“You departed so suddenly! My
caro sposo
and I were quite alarmed to find you flee, dear Mrs. Knightley, from our little party! But I believe you found the gathering as inconvenient as I did – is that not the case? As Mrs. Bragge always repeated to me, in the words of her aunt Lady Carinthia Bragge, it is not suitable to entertain in the company of a governess. Now your Mrs. Weston, my dear, is of course a gentlewoman, and one may say that dear Miss Bates provided a most respectable upbringing for Miss Fairfax. Nevertheless I always do find there to be trouble when a governess is concerned.”

Emma flushed in annoyance. For all the speed and comfort of the little trap, she wished herself back on the hard surface of the lane again. There was one reason only, as she recognised, for accepting Mrs. Elton's offer to transport her to Donwell. She would discover the answer to those questions which preoccupied her; then, thanking the vicar's wife for her kind actions, she would climb down from the carriage and continue her journey as she had done before.

“I do not know, my dear Emma, if you are acquainted with the extraordinary life of the Baronne d'Almane,” continued Mrs. Elton, thus preventing both the query
and an expression of displeasure at the familiarity of address. “We have been most
bouleversés
– that is, my lord and master and myself – to hear of such adventures! – such bravery! – we are reminded of our good fortune here, in the calm of Highbury!”

Emma assured Mrs. Elton with as much discipline of her emotions as she could muster, that she had heard no word of the past life and exploits of the Baroness d'Almane. Here, as that voice told her, came the answer to the preoccupations and sorrows of Jane Fairfax – and, for Emma refused already to hear the truth as it had declared itself to her just five minutes before, here indeed was the route to the rescue of poor Jane from the miseries of her existence. Marriage must come quicker than had at first been surmised. Or Jane was lost.— Emma saw an abyss, very deep: she did not see herself fall into it. Jane must be saved from the attentions of the Frenchwoman who pursued her even here.

“Elise – her real name is Delphine – is that not a lovely name? – was born in Paris of aristocratic parents. Both were lost to the guillotine.”

Emma murmured something – she knew not what. Her heart was hardened against the woman who would take Jane from the prospects of a comfortable and happy life – one such as Emma's own – and subject her to the miseries of female friendship, ostracism and despair. She did not look straight at Mrs. Elton as the
Baroness's past was exhumed; the countryside, dry and brown as the hedgerows and grass banks had now turned in the late season of the summer, was as refreshing as ever she had seen it, on the way from Donwell Abbey to Highbury.

“Delphine – Elise, I should say – was married and widowed early—”

“So young?” Emma could not help herself from exclaiming.

“Indeed, she was left a widow with a handsome portion. Such is the kindness of the Baronne's heart that she wished to aid a young girl, Mathilde, in the finding of a husband. A young man had been found for Mathilde by her mother; his name was Léonce.”

The Abbey walls, still a mile or so distant, were visible at last. Emma thought she had never been so glad to see them come into view: beyond these stone-clad edifices were honour, loyalty, fidelity: all that Mr. Knightley brought to the world, as landowner and working farmer, husband and mentor. Here, as Mrs. Elton presented it, was the great world, in which acts of treachery and vile conspiracy are matters of the everyday. Never had Emma wished to run into the arms of Mr. Knightley more.

“You do not care to hear this,” cried Mrs. Elton; and Emma could not refrain from observing that so great a degree of sensibility on the part of the lady of the
Vicarage was rare. “It is because you fear a tale of ill repute – you do not wish to find yourself soiled by such stories from the Continent, dear Emma!”

The trap rattled along, for the incline went gently at this point downhill to the Abbey gates. Had Emma not feared the breaking of an ankle, she would have leapt to the ground there and then; as it was, she turned a face that was by no means amiable, in the direction of Mrs. Elton. “It is not so,” said Emma, though she felt a lurch within, at her own encouragement of the narrative. “Pray continue, Mrs. Elton!”

“It was the fault of no one,” said Mrs. Elton, and as she raised her voice against the rattle of the small stones in the road on the wheels of the trap, she became more than customarily shrill. “Elise – Delphine, no I must allow her at this great moment in her life the honour of her own name – Delphine and Léonce fell violently in love!”

I thought as much, said Emma to herself; but she was moved, she could not say why. It had been a long, hot day: she thought briefly of Captain Brocklehurst, as women will think of the one in their secret hearts, when a love story is told – but he vanished again, before there was time, even, for him to stand in her imaginings in the Hartfield shrubbery. The Baroness – Delphine – appeared in his place: to banish this figment an effort of conscious will came into play.

“The love was known to all Paris,” said Mrs. Elton.
“Delphine was disgraced. She had no choice but to wander in wild lands—”

“It was as well,” said Emma, who was aware of sounding stiff.

“Until at last she came to Switzerland. There she entered a convent—”

A vision of the Baroness in nun's habit rose in Emma's mind, and was despatched with as much difficulty as the last. But Mrs. Elton talked on. The walls of the Abbey rose to greet them: the gates, closed, were opened by a lad fumbling with a key. “The mother superior was an aunt of Léonce, and it was she who brought the lovers together again. Mathilde, the last to hear of the scandal, had died in Paris, died of a broken heart—” Mrs. Elton's voice wore on; and Emma, fatigued by the tale, by the heat and by the sense of an unknown danger she had felt since leaving the Vicarage alone, begged that the conveyance be brought to a halt. It was shady in the yew drive to Donwell Abbey. She would be glad to walk.

“But one day, when Léonce and Delphine were together in the convent,” continued Mrs. Elton, as she pulled in the reins and Emma descended at as great a speed as she could contrive – “one day, there came the sound of the music of a regiment beyond the walls. Léonce ran to the window. For the glory of his country he knew he must go and fight—”

Emma stood by the trap. Her head ached, and she
wished to make it clear that no answer had been given to her invitation to dinner the following day. What would Mrs. Hodges do, if she must wait until the very last minute to hear if five guests came or not? For the first time, Emma was inclined to blame Jane Fairfax: for the awkwardness over dinner; for bringing to Highbury the possessor of a lurid history which nevertheless absorbed her as no story of a life had done before; in short, for everything. She wished she had not taken Jane Fairfax's dilemma to heart. It was, after all, a very commonplace dilemma, that of a young woman who has no independence and must work for a living: how was it, then, that such thought, energy and compassion must be poured at every hour of the day into Jane Fairfax? The fact that these had not been asked for, made the question all the more infuriating.

“Léonce was killed fighting for his country,” Mrs. Elton ended on a triumphant note. “Look, Emma – there is Knightley!— Why, he must have heard us coming. He has a sense when you are in the vicinity. It is most romantic, my dear!”

Emma saw that her husband did indeed approach; though the drive, with the deep shade cast by the yews, seemed from time to time to swallow him up. She walked at a brisk pace towards him; any hopes that Mrs. Elton would turn and head for home were, naturally, abandoned.

“Mrs. Knightley!” Mrs. Elton's voice came in pursuit as she came near to the man she had long known; had married; and revered and respected above all else. Already, as he smiled at the speed of her coming to him, the melodrama of the Baroness faded away. Mr. Knightley was as much England as the Frenchwoman was the other world, of which Emma knew nothing and wished to know no more. In her relief, she increased her pace further. Both husband and wife laughed as she almost threw herself into his arms.

But Mrs. Elton had drawn abreast. The pony streamed in the heat, and flies settled on its neck, so the champing and chafing of the horse almost drowned her next words. “Oh, Knightley, a very good day to you! Your dear
Signora
has had the kindness to invite us to the Abbey tomorrow. May I say we shall all be more than happy to come? With the possible exception of Miss Fairfax, I must add. She is at present severely indisposed.”

Mr. Knightley, who had taken the hand extended by the Vicar's wife, expressed his hopes that Miss Fairfax would be sufficiently recovered by the following day to join them for dinner at the Abbey.

“The party is mostly in her honour, you know,” he added, and had Emma not found herself to be so attached to him at that moment, she could have disliked him for the mischievous smile which accompanied these words.

“Indeed,” said Mrs. Elton, “but now that an invitation has been extended to our Baronne, we shall not be short of the most delightful female company.”

Mr. Knightley assured Mrs. Elton that her own presence was quite enough to make up that complement.

“I do hope,” cried Mrs. Elton, for she was encouraged by admiration from a quarter previously unexpected, “that your brother John Knightley will be among the guests tomorrow, dear Mr. Knightley. For I know your esteemed wife will not be offended when I say I have long in my imagining placed the Baronne d'Almane at the side of Mr. John Knightley on this particular occasion – and now we are actually invited, I cannot resist putting the proposition discreetly to you. I trust I do not exceed my duties as hostess to a tragic noblewoman—”

But Emma, who saw Mr. Knightley unable to restrain his laughter beside her, had started her walk up the drive without turning her head to the left or the right.

It was monstrous, that Mrs. Elton should dare to try out her matchmaking at dinner at Donwell Abbey. It was insufferable, that she should place the Frenchwoman where Emma had long in her mind placed Jane Fairfax – at the side of John Knightley. It should not be!

Captain Brocklehurst was quite forgotten, as Emma concluded her walk back to the comforts and familiarity of the Abbey. Jane Fairfax – poor Jane – must be saved
from a life without hope, happiness or true harmony. She should be obliged to overcome her antipathy to John Knightley, and he must conquer his aversion to
her
.

One suspicion entertained by Emma would, however, not leave her as she walked: as soon as Mr. Knightley had persuaded Mrs. Elton to return to the Vicarage, he would come to the Abbey and tease her insufferably.

Emma was not required to continue thinking of her ill opinion of Mrs. Elton: that she was self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant and ill-bred could only be repeated so many times, before a sense of impatience with the idea of the morrow's party became overwhelming; fortunately a guest – and one who was as welcome at the Abbey as Mrs. Elton would ever be the contrary – waited for her in the drawing-room. Mrs. Weston had come; and, after a conversation with Mr. Knightley on the subject of a boating party which her own incumbents at Randalls, Mr. Frank Churchill and Captain Brocklehurst, had particularly requested, she had decided to remain indoors until such time as her Emma could be seen to return safely home.

Emma was overjoyed to find her old governess there. The fears and apprehensions of the preceding hours soon vanished away. Mrs. Weston smiled at the suggestion that Jane Fairfax was truly made ill by the indignities of her profession, and said so, in words which Emma was grateful to hear.

“Beloved Emma, you care too much for the fortunes of others! Jane Fairfax is not so well placed as I was, to be sure—” and here Mrs. Weston smiled so tenderly at the memory of old Mr. Woodhouse and his wife, mother to Emma, of whom the child had remembered so little, and the grown woman almost nothing at all. “But she is well looked after at the Smallridges. She will recover from her broken heart – may I assure you, my dear, that this is possible? And then – who knows? Someone else may come into her life. And she will be happy – as I have been – indeed, as I am, with Mr. Weston. Believe me, Emma. It can come true!”

Emma did not find time to wonder if Mrs. Weston's heart had indeed been broken when she was a young woman, and before she had come to take up her post at Hartfield. As with Mr. Knightley, the presence of Miss Taylor – as she had been – was as enduring and necessary to the very foundations of existence, as the stones and roof tiles of Hartfield itself. There was a need, however, to disabuse the dear friend Mrs. Weston was now become, of the illusion that Jane
Fairfax suffered at losing Frank Churchill.

“She may believe herself heart-broken,” cried Emma, “but there is another danger come into poor Jane's life – I swear there is! And we must make sure we save her from it, so I ask you to believe me in turn, my good Mrs. Weston!”

“Another danger?” said Mrs. Weston, rolling her eyes. “Emma, you were ever the imaginist. You go further than I can happily go with you, I fear. What danger is this?”

Emma, to her mortification, found herself tongue-tied. She could not speak of the Frenchwoman; but in her mind's eye she saw her, and she held hands with Jane Fairfax as she looked over her shoulder and smiled.

“You should think more of yourself, dear Emma,” said Mrs. Weston in a quiet tone – for the Abbey doors were heard to open, and there was little doubt Mr. Knightley had returned from the yew drive, and from the exchanging of pleasantries with Mrs. Elton. “I mean to say,—” and here the old governess lowered her voice considerably, “have you not, my love, thought of starting on a family yourself? You have cared for your nephews and nieces two years now; the whole village remarks on your kindness and patience. You speak of a school, at Hartfield. Would it not be better by far if you had a child of your own, Emma? Think of schools later. There, I have brought it all out, and I did not intend to
fill your mind with such thoughts, when you have the dinner party here tomorrow—”