Read Emma in Love Online

Authors: Emma Tennant

Emma in Love (14 page)

BOOK: Emma in Love
4.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Emma in turn gave her assurances that she had no reproaches to make to Mr. Weston's son. “Frank had every good reason to wish to come to Randalls, to visit his father and his new mother—”

“It is four years,” said Mr. Weston; and his genial manner for a moment lessened; then, seeing the advantage in the period of time that had elapsed since his only son's last visit – and the implications, that marriage to an heiress in the North was as demanding as sustaining the role of nephew to the late Mrs. Churchill had been – he brightened once more, and began again on the subject. But Emma, thinking she saw a corner of Mrs. Weston's dress by the west side of the house, going into the conservatory latterly erected there,
held her hand high and arrested Mr. Weston in his flow.

“I do not believe that Jane Fairfax suffers,” said she in as grave a tone as she could muster; she, also, smiled at the prospect, such a very short time away, of having dear Mrs. Weston to herself. She would be told the full history.— For Emma, the burning curiosity of the passionate was new; the thirst in need of quenching instantly, for all her life she had known the details, intimate and public, of the man she married in Highbury church, and the story of the Baroness was as an unread book: highly commended, the details of the plot known to her friend, and shortly to be passed on! It was an intoxicating thought; and Mr. Weston, understanding as little as Mr. Knightley had done, responded only to the gaiety and radiance his visitor gave off. This was all he had, to prompt him to produce his next words to her.

“It is time we arranged a dance, Emma,” said Mr. Weston accordingly. “And not to be held at the Crown Inn this time, my dear. Do not you agree that our conservatory, lit by candles and leading directly from the dining-room, would hold upward of fifty? Indeed, Frank does: he has not changed, when it comes to dancing, I may assure you, Mrs. Knightley!”

Emma did now increase her pace in the direction of that glass edifice. She expected Mr. Weston's habitual remark, that Donwell Abbey would do very well with a conservatory; and this duly came; but after it came
further a sign of Mr. Weston's continuing preoccupation with the hard-hearted behaviour of his son. For politeness' sake, Emma arrested her progress by the side of the house; the conservatory walls were in view, and within them a handsome arrangement of ferns and hanging baskets, each with its crown of tropical plants. There was reason to go in here, as Mr. Weston was a frequent visitor to Kew when on one of his trips to London, to look after his interests; and there was always a new specimen to be appraised and wondered at. Today, as Emma had glimpsed, Mrs. Weston had entered there, and would give out her exotic tale, much as an orchid or lily gives its heady scent. The life of the Baroness would be unfurled.

“You say Jane Fairfax does not suffer,” said Mr. Weston in a low voice, as Emma, peering around the corner, saw a figure in a wide-brimmed straw hat in a far chair by the windows that looked south from the conservatory, over the rolling hills and land that was all in Donwell Abbey's demesne. “Can you furnish any proof – Oh my dear, we have often mistaken the intentions and results of Frank's attachments, as you know—”

Mr. Weston broke off; but Emma felt further shame, that she could not bring greater evidence of Jane's recovery from her treatment at the hands of the notorious Frank Churchill. It was true, as she reflected,
that Mr. Weston did not know how to measure his son's affections: he had thought Emma herself might be heartbroken, when Jane's engagement to his son became known! Emma did not like to think of it. She searched for words of comfort; but she did not wish to admit that her proof was scant: she had a feeling that Jane and the Baroness were closely allied, and she wished Jane would announce a betrothal, before the summer was out; that was all she knew. With John Knightley so far removed from possibility, she could only hint to Mr. Weston that another, not so far removed from Frank Churchill, might well be the one to lead the lovely Miss Fairfax down the aisle of St. Mary's, Highbury.

“Captain Brocklehurst?” Mr. Weston's voice grew loud, in his surprise – and Emma feared his wife heard him, for there was a stirring from the figure by the conservatory window. Mrs. Weston must not come out here: she must tell the Baroness's story in private: Emma cursed her judgement, and wished she had said nothing at all.

“He is Frank's brother-in-law, you know,” said Mr. Weston in an extremely doubtful tone. “This would make Miss Fairfax all the more unhappy, would it not?”

At this point, and greatly to Emma's relief, a servant came from the house to say the head gardener awaited Mr. Weston within; and, murmuring his apologies, the good man left.

Emma, deciding she would walk around the outside windows of the conservatory and surprise her friend there, smiled gleefully and set off. She saw the fuchsias, in bright clusters, which grew in the company of geraniums, within the glass; beyond, where a palm tree drooped its graceful fronds, was the loved, familiar figure of Miss Taylor – of Mrs. Weston as she had long been, though as governess and almost as mother is how Emma was accustomed to think of her. She sat patiently, as if becalmed by the tranquil view now afforded at Randalls with the construction of the glass house.

Emma went on tiptoe; she felt the conspiracy, and the joy of herself as a child, when she had been Miss Taylor's pupil and her cherished charge. She pressed her face against the pane, and looked in.

Captain Mark Brocklehurst, in a white, floating gown and with cheeks and lips rouged to a bright hue, sat in the wicker wing chair, under a wide-brimmed straw hat. Emma gasped, and with her foot dislodged a stone in the gravel path where she stood; he looked round, and saw her there.

Emma turned and fled. She saw Mr. Weston emerge from the house, and she tried to slow her run. But she was able to see, when once she twisted round in her headlong flight, that her host, unable to decide whether to arrest her in her path or carry into his conservatory a new plant, tall and trembling in an earthenware pot,
allowed expediency to make his choice; and he took the latter course. That he entered his glass construction to find himself quite alone, was certainly the case: Emma, stopping altogether this time at the edge of the lawn at Randalls, saw inside the conservatory entirely from this new vantage point. It was empty. Alerted by an unexpected visitor, the Captain had fled, as she had done, and was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 21

“Lyme. We first met at Lyme. We had taken the children from Weymouth. We were there two days. It was very fine.”

These were the words which were lodged in Emma's memory; and even though they had been uttered but a half hour back, she felt already that a great span of time had passed since their utterance, by Jane Fairfax. She had hoped for more; but the governess, more reserved even than in the days before her employment by Mrs. Smallridge, would vouchsafe nothing further. Emma saw a figure on the Cobb – her sister Isabella, who had once visited Lyme, had told her of that stone rampart, which juts out over the sea there, and is frequently drenched with spray.— Emma saw the Baroness, an
isolated and splendid figure, as she stood cloaked and drenched, by the encroaching sea. But, in the end, there was still no answer to the mystery of the Frenchwoman. If she stood on the Cobb, how had she come from France? Would she return to Lyme? Had she friends or family there?— Jane Fairfax, as was her custom, would not be drawn. Emma found it disgusting, in the extreme. The only solace was the presence of the Baroness at the table: Emma was aware that all eyes were upon the beautiful foreigner, and that her own must not linger too long there. She moved her regard, as a hostess should; and concluded that the guests were well attended at Donwell Abbey tonight.

There was a new dining-table. But the shame, for Emma, of noticing nothing changed at the Abbey upon her return from Randalls, stood in the way of a full appreciation of Mr. Knightley's gesture. His mother's table need no longer be carried in, if they were more than six people for dinner! It had needed him, to say it; and John Knightley, standing as he habitually did, directly behind his brother, had muttered that good money was spent easily at Donwell, and the results not seen or liked by the mistress of the house.

There were also the pearls – which Emma felt at her neck, loose, for her throat was more slender than old Mrs. Knightley's had been – but constricting nevertheless. She could not look across the table and see the
Baroness there. She smiled at Mr. Knightley and touched the necklace; and he smiled in gratification. It was a pitiful business, Emma thought, and she found herself wishing she was an hundred miles distant from the Abbey, and from him, tonight.

There had not been time to think of what she had seen, at Randalls. All Emma could do, as she glanced at the dinner-table, which was fashioned from satinwood and was of the new type, which was marquetry, was to understand that Jane Fairfax must marry John Knightley and nobody else. There could be no wedding with Captain Brocklehurst. She shied away from the memory of the vision of the handsome young man, as she had seen him, and wondered at the meaning of it all. But Jane and Frank Churchill's brother-in-law could not be man and wife. As for the gallant Captain's admiration of herself – Emma found to her annoyance that she was piqued. She had not fancied him so much in love with her as truly taken by her beauty and her wit; after all, he had practised a deception. The Captain was not what he seemed. Emma felt, in her imaginings, that she had saved poor Jane Fairfax from a dreadful fate; and wondered at the unfortunate young woman's lack of gratitude at her benefactress's efforts on her behalf.

Instead, the object of Emma's charity sat very still and pale beside Mr. Knightley's brother. Emma could have kicked her, to provoke some kind of movement; but
John was himself much taken with his neighbour on the other side, the Baroness; and if Emma saw her husband's good humour improve by the minute, it was doubtless due to the instant success of his matchmaking. It was too provoking – so Emma was bound to conclude – to be borne.

Good, if unexpected aspects of the guests had otherwise revealed themselves at dinner in the Abbey; and, to provide calm for her tormented soul, Emma attempted to recall them and to give them their due. Mrs. Elton, despite a gown of purple satin and an assortment of brooches and earrings, kept quieter than was her wont: the Knightley pearls, as she named Emma's strand, on perceiving it around her hostess's neck, had thrown her into a reflective state; and, apart from references to the silver at the Sucklings' house near Bristol, and her own forthcoming visit to that family, she was silent. Emma found she had much to be thankful for, here. Mrs. Elton would have been insufferable, if she had been in full voice; and her husband, accustomed as he was by now to await her lead in all matters conversational, made no more sound than a domestic animal which has been encouraged on occasion to give a growl of disapproval or a whine of joy.

Mrs. Smallridge, apart from a need – as Emma soon discovered – to be thanked at every opportunity, whether she passed down the sauce-boat, referred to her
generosity with candles in the schoolroom, or wished the company to recall her rapid discovery of Mrs. Knightley at the time of her visit there, in the Vicarage garden, was easily distracted by the most commonplace of dinner-party talk. She sat at Mr. Knightley's left hand; and was fed by him with information on the history of the Abbey and its ancient bounds. Her questions – for which she expected also praise and thanks – were as frequent as gunfire. Mr. Knightley did his best. But then, as Emma reflected with some bitterness, a conversation with Mrs. Smallridge kept him from taking up the time and attention of his other neighbour – who was the Baroness. The romance with John Knightley could bloom, as Mrs. Smallridge explored the Abbey's past.

Most of all to be glad for was the apparent improvement of Miss Bates. She had come with her mother. Emma owned herself quite moved, for Mrs. Bates's dinners with Mr. Woodhouse had been a prominent feature of her father's life. That the lady cried out in delight at the promise of baked apples brought laughter and a sense of compassionate friendship to the table; and that Emma had remembered to produce just the biscuits old Mrs. Bates had enjoyed at Hartfield was much remarked upon – though Mrs. Smallridge, scenting that thanks were given in a direction not her own, demanded gratitude in advance by declaring she would herself take a batch of newly-baked biscuits twice
a week to Miss Bates's house, and would have done so already, if she had known what Mrs. Bates's favourites were. Emma was hard put not to laugh, at this attempt to put her in the wrong, for not telling a guest of Mrs. Elton the tastes of a lady previously unknown to her. This was the kind of nonsense produced by the party: anyone said anything; and biscuits were less harmful than most topics introduced at a dinner-table.

Miss Bates did speak – it would have been odd indeed, if she had not – but Emma noticed that she spoke with greater clarity than usual. Her only aberration lay in the repetition of the last word – or last few words – of the sentence just uttered by the other person, with whom she was engaged in conversation; and, as Emma reflected with a good degree of relief, it was improbable in the extreme that words not said in polite society would be aired here.

All in all, the evening at Donwell brought out the best in everyone – if Emma could bring herself to overlook the roaring good humour of John Knightley, at being seated next to the Baroness. She knew herself at fault, in blaming the poor widower for enjoying himself on one of the rare festive occasions which he had no choice but to attend. She must bask in the sense of a dinner that was delicious, and well presented; she must feel she did good, and brought happiness to Miss Bates and her mother, as well as to those who were less deserving; and
there would be appreciation later, without doubt, from Mr. Knightley. Emma had no one to blame but herself, if she was miserable at finding her curiosity on the subject of the Baroness unsatisfied. She knew she must smile, and not look across at her; and in both of these resolutions she succeeded – until the meal was almost at an end.

BOOK: Emma in Love
4.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Samurai's Wife by Laura Joh Rowland
Hotbed by Bill James
Grayson by Lynne Cox
False Witness by Scott Cook
The Spanish Game by Charles Cumming
Cursed by Chemistry by Kacey Mark
Dare to Submit by Carly Phillips