Emma in Love (2 page)

Emma, who had declined to reply to the lawyer, saw that he looked at her askance.

“It is very uncertain, what the weather will do
here
,” she said in a mild tone which failed to deceive her husband, who strolled from the end of the room and smiled at the assembled party. “But there are dreadful
tempests in Weymouth – so Miss Bates informed James yesterday when he went there, for I thought to save her the walk up here in this heat.”

“You did well to instruct him to take the basket of comestibles to Miss Bates before she could fatigue herself by walking to the Abbey,” said Mr. Knightley; and Emma, who liked his praise, blushed on receiving it. “But how can Miss Bates know of Weymouth? She does not intend to go to the sea with old Mrs. Bates not likely to last out the summer, I daresay?”

“That would be culpable indeed!” said John Knightley, who proceeded to tuck his thumbs under his armpits and stride the room as if conducting a prosecution for the Crown. “I cannot imagine that Miss Bates would abandon her mother in these circumstances, notwithstanding the attentions of Mr. Perry and his good wife. No, Miss Bates would be tried by public opinion and I fear she would not be acquitted, were she to gallivant to the seaside at this critical juncture. Is that not so, brother George?”

“Nobody suggests that Miss Bates gallivants to the seaside!” Emma cried out in exasperation. For it was the case that John Knightley, since the demise of the sensible Isabella, appeared to have lost the power of discrimination between one person and another. Actions and evidence of them were all. “No, she has received a letter from her niece. Jane Fairfax is at Weymouth. She
is in charge of Mrs. Smallridge's children; they board on the seafront; and Miss Bates's excitement lies solely in the fact that Jane travels here at this moment. Mrs. Smallridge comes to visit her friend Mrs. Elton at the Vicarage; and quite unexpectedly she has commanded the governess to bring the children to Highbury, to pass the rest of the summer here.”

“It is that which I tried to tell you,” said Mrs. Weston in a low voice as John Knightley demanded proof of Miss Fairfax's journey and Mrs. Smallridge's identity. “That is the awkwardness, Emma. Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill will be here together, after four years – since the jilt – it is most reprehensible, do not you agree?”

Mr. Knightley, when he had attempted to answer the most detailed of his brother's questions, observed that the day showed no sign of growing cooler, and that an unpleasantly warm evening lay ahead for them at Donwell Abbey. “Come, let us all walk down to the stream. I need to remind Robert Martin to set more traps for moles; they are up everywhere by the vegetables. Come, Emma – Mrs. Weston, you will join us, I trust?”

There was little point in denying Mr. Knightley when he wished for a walk; and no wish on Emma's part to do so, for he generally went about the place alone, from habit.

They proceeded all four down the lime walk, exclaiming at the pleasantness of the shade; and had it not been for John Knightley, the subject of the unfortunate conjunction of Mr. Churchill and Miss Fairfax would not have been repeated.

“I recall Miss Fairfax as most reserved, a quality which is of particular merit to members of my profession,” said John Knightley as the little party arrived at the boundary fence and looked down at the clear waters of the stream. “Does she not play the pianoforte remarkably well, also?”

Emma, holding Mrs. Weston's arm, squeezed it. “Indeed, Miss Fairfax is as reserved and as fine a player on the pianoforte as it is possible to be,” she said, and looked up gravely at John Knightley; though his brother, who knew his Emma too well, was quick to shake his head at her.

Robert Martin, emerging from the Abbey Mill farmhouse on the bank across the stream, lifted his hat to them.

“You gave your word, Emma,” said Mr. Knightley; but, along with Mrs. Weston, he smiled. “You are a married woman, my dear, and you have forsworn the meddling and matchmaking which you indulged in as a girl, have you not, Emma?”

Robert Martin, fording the stream and coming up towards them, put an end to the conversation. Mr.
Knightley went off with him to the terrain infested by moles, and John Knightley's children, in search of their aunt and uncle, ran up.

Mrs. Weston and Emma, however, pondered the coming days both in silence and aloud; though Mrs. Weston's opinion, that Jane Fairfax would never find John Knightley to her liking; and Emma's decision, which was that John Knightley and Jane Fairfax deserved each other exactly, were judgements each friend found wise to keep to herself.

Harriet Smith had been the subject of Emma's matchmaking attentions before her marriage to the farmer Robert Martin; yet despite this, she was not quick to understand the musings of her friend. Seeing Emma at the end of the lime walk, she had walked up in response to her beckoning, and the two ladies, having said farewell to Mrs. Weston, walked the mile to Hartfield, where arrangements were to be made for John Knightley's children. Emma in her talk interspersed her very natural concerns for the educational future of Henry and John and their younger siblings George, Bella and little Emma with speculation on the marital prospects of Jane Fairfax, so suddenly announced to be coming amongst them.

“It is a great pity that Frank Churchill acted as he did! I thought from the time he went to London to have his hair cut, that he had a frivolity in his nature which would serve poor Jane very ill. Did not you, Harriet?”

Harriet, who recalled only the painful misunderstanding of Emma's attempt to marry
her
to Mr. Weston's son while she had been busily engaged in falling in love with Mr. Knightley, blushed and said nothing. Had she so wished, Harriet could have found herself unpleasantly reminded of Emma's mis-matches at every turn of the road, and by the sight of any tree or flower; and sometimes, as she admitted only privately, she was made utterly downcast by the view of the church spire from the road (her infatuation with Mr. Elton) or a crowd of people outside the Crown (the dance where she had been rescued by Emma's gallant squire and had been foolish enough to fancy he loved her). On this occasion, and as ever, she said nothing; a silence taken by Emma as concurrence in her pronouncement on the character of Frank Churchill.

“Poor Jane!” said Emma again, when she had enquired of Harriet whether she had asked Mrs. Wells to bring pies to the school, so the children could eat there and become accustomed to their new surroundings before lessons began. To this, Harriet, whose soft blue eyes seldom left Emma's face as she talked, replied in the
affirmative, and her friend and mentor was able to continue thinking aloud.

“John Knightley has been so very courageous since the sad loss of his wife, Harriet. Do not you think so? I believe he thinks of poor Isabella night and day; more even than I do, for she married and went to live in London when I was still so young. And, as Papa used to complain so, she never had time to come to Hartfield for longer than a few nights at a time! Little wonder her health was not strong – I speak like my father, I know I am like him, so Mr. Knightley informs me, in more ways than I know. But I am not like Isabella; she was, as Mr. Knightley also says and everyone agrees, very like
me
!”

Harriet was out of her depth here, and paused on the road. A cloud of dust on this hot July day showed a carriage coming behind them at a good rate; the white dust rose into the air and was borne ahead, causing Emma to sneeze.

“Why, that is Mrs. Elton, and she will refer to the fact that she is out in her barouche-landau for a very special purpose,” said Emma, laughing, for she was good-natured enough to recover from her sneezing fit and have little concern for streaming eyes and a ruined appearance. “She will say she brings red currant tarts and muffins to the poor orphans, Harriet, mark my words!”

Harriet, who had only just begun to understand that Jane Fairfax and John Knightley were to be married by Emma whether they liked it or no, stood back from the edge of the road as the carriage drew up. It was indeed the barouche-landau; Mrs. Elton sat in the back in great magnificence, in a purple satin dress looped and criss-crossed by brocade ribbons; at her side was an unpleasant-looking woman, whose thin mouth went down at the corners and whose eyes appeared to travel at an unusual speed from side to side.

“Allow me to introduce Mrs. Smallridge,” said Mrs. Elton, as she extended a hand from the carriage. Emma – followed by Harriet – had no choice but to receive her handshake in this way. “Mrs. Smallridge and I are out to explore – this is her first time at Highbury – how we loved expeditions when we were in Bristol, did we not, Alicia? And now – just as I sought to explain that two weddings and a funeral take up all the time of my
caro sposo
at present – that we cannot even once repeat the pleasure of a picnic at Box Hill but must remain close to home – we come across Knightley on our drive. And Knightley offers the chance of a boating party; it is to be on a lake at the extreme edges of his extensive estates – yours of course also, dear Mrs. Knightley—”

Emma showed by her frown and withdrawal to a part of the road where she might continue walking with Harriet, that she would no longer participate in this
conversation. With a curt farewell she walked on, Harriet following as she was bound to do.

“It vexes me very much that Mrs. Elton should consider it acceptable to refer to my husband as ‘Knightley',” said she crossly; and as always when in the company of Harriet, chiefly to herself. “How dare she indulge in such familiarity? There certainly shall be no boating party; I cannot think what lake she means, in any case; I have lived my life here and I have never seen a lake.”

Harriet put forward that Mr. Knightley had jested, in order to give amusement to Emma on her return from Hartfield. But the spirits of the two friends were soon lowered once more by finding on arrival at the house which once had been home to Emma and her father Mr. Woodhouse, that Mrs. Elton's barouche-landau stood outside. A sound of voices engaged in the reciting of poetry emanated from the drawing-room, through a French window wide open in the heat of the day. As Emma and Harriet approached across the grass, the recitation faltered and stopped. Bella, who was the elder of John Knightley's two daughters, came to the window and looked out with an enquiring expression at her aunt. In the background, and clearly demonstrating her desire to be of service to Mrs. Elton, stood the children's governess Miss Whynne, brought by John Knightley from London.

“Whatever is going on?” demanded Emma, who was quite pale by now at the sight of the Vicar's wife in command of the drawing-room where once she had sat long evenings with her father. It was a room which, like the sites marked for Harriet's painful memories, would never be free of associations for her. “Why are you doing lessons with Mrs. Elton? Why did you not wait for me?”

“Mrs. Elton brought us pies – and muffins—” The child, who was no more than ten years old, became confused, and blushed scarlet. “I did not know, Aunt Emma—”

Mrs. Elton came to the window, Mrs. Smallridge following behind her. “My dear Mrs. Knightley, you must forgive our visiting the little school here – we are much taken with education, as you may be aware: why, Alicia has her hands full with training Miss Fairfax to reach some level of accuracy with her French verbs! There is nothing worse than a governess who is slovenly with her grammar, do not you agree, Mrs. Knightley?”

Emma, who found herself still speechless at the sight of her nephews and nieces munching on the charity from the Vicarage, said nothing and turned on her heel. It was left to Harriet to bid farewell for the second time to Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Smallridge, who stood framed in the open window as if about to commence a theatrical production of their own devising.

“Mrs. Elton treats my poor sister's children like
orphans,” cried Emma, once the shrubberies of Hartfield were left behind and the road to Donwell Abbey embarked upon. “It was I who determined that Hartfield should not lie empty since my marriage; I who wished to try as an experiment the educating of my nephews and nieces; and I who suggested to John Knightley that we commence gently, with only Miss Whynne, while Mrs. Weston might include her own little Adelaide in the plan, should it prove successful. And Mrs. Elton has the impudence to sweep in, with tarts—”

“John Knightley certainly has need of a wife,” said Harriet, who had now grasped the gist of Emma's earlier thoughts. “The children need a mother, however much time and attention you may give them, Mrs. Knightley. Oh, they do!”

Emma walked on in silence, leaving Harriet to regurgitate their conversations on the walk; and to wonder, if Emma disliked Mrs. Elton referring to the squire of Donwell Abbey as Knightley, why she had not once heard his wife call him George.

But this, like so many of her revered Emma's foibles, was quite beyond Harriet to imagine. For the present, Mrs. Elton's insufferable bounty at Hartfield was enough to occupy them both.

An entire evening was to be got through before Emma could pay a visit to Miss Bates, and thus ascertain that her niece was indeed just arrived at Highbury. A dinner could then be put forward as a pleasant occasion for all three: Miss Bates; her mother, old Mrs. Bates – who, as Emma did not like to admit to herself, was not so frequent a recipient of the Knightleys' hospitality as she had been at Hartfield; and Jane Fairfax herself, who was by now as good as wed to Mr. Knightley's brother in Emma's mind as if Mr. Elton had pronounced the couple man and wife but a day or so ago at the altar.

Emma had never liked Jane Fairfax. The reserve and caution exhibited by the beautiful young woman at the
time of her secret engagement to Frank Churchill had been repulsive to one so openly desirous of controlling the lives of others as Emma Woodhouse; and Mr. Knightley's frank accusation that Emma's dislike of one so much less fortunate than she originated in an unconscious recognition of Jane's superior accomplishments, had done little to increase her fondness for one she had learnt to see as a rival.