Emma: The Wild and Wanton Edition (3 page)

“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 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, his lips quirked. “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.”

Emma leaned back and crossed her arms beneath her bosom. “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.” His brows drew together in the typical concerned expression he donned when lecturing Emma. It cast his eyes in a shadow that did not diminish the glow that sprang from their warm depth. Emma looked away, disconcerted.

“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.”

Emma uncrossed her arms and sat up straight, excitement tinting her tone. “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, his eyes crinkling at the corner, his teeth flashing white, “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.”

Mr. Knightley left the Woodhouses at his first opportunity after dinner. He breathed an uneasy sigh as he mounted his horse and kneed him into a canter toward Donwell Abbey. His mind was a flurry of activity that spurred his body into a flurry of activity as well.

What, exactly, had Emma been about this evening? Smiling and leaning close and crossing her arms beneath her bosom. Had she taken complete leave of her senses?

His mind automatically countered, defending her. No, she had behaved in much the same way as she usually did. It had been
Mr. Knightley’s
reaction that had differed from the routine.

Mr. Knightley groaned as he admitted he had to come to terms with the fact that Emma Woodhouse, his sister-in-law’s younger sister, was no longer a child.

“Devil take it,” he muttered as he realized it was much, much worse than that. No, he could take Emma growing up. What he could not take, evidently, was her turning into a beautiful woman.

He should not have touched her; of that he was certain. What kind of fool’s errand had driven him to take her hand? Her slim fingers beneath his hand had almost been his undoing, but that had only been because of what came just prior.

If her mother had still been living, she would have told Emma that leaning far over when talking to a gentleman was a bad idea. Mr. Knightley had to confess that he had very little idea of what had been said between them while she had leaned close and smiled so prettily at him. No, his attention had been focused a bit below her mouth.

He had first noticed the enticing way her pulse fluttered at the base of her throat. The errant thought that he would like to place his mouth over it had stricken him like a blow. He had moved his eyes away, mortified that he had let his thoughts turn in such a direction, when he had encountered her breasts.

Atop his horse, Mr. Knightley sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. The vision of her beautiful bosom was still emblazoned across the backs of his eyelids. So full. So tempting. Mr. Knightley’s breath shuddered out of his chest.

His eyes sprang open with dread. Like a man facing the gallows, Mr. Knightley slowly directed his line of sight to his hips. He cursed at the inarguable evidence of where his thoughts had led him. His arousal pressed against the front of his breeches so fully, Mr. Knightley was obscenely unfit for polite company. He thanked heaven that his body had waited until he had been away from Emma and — he suppressed a shiver of mortification —
Mr. Woodhouse
before betraying him in such a manner.

Mr. Knightley shifted in the saddle trying to find a comfortable position to accommodate his current predicament, but after several moments, he gave up the endeavor as hopeless.

He readjusted his thighs’ grip on his mount and clicked his tongue twice while flicking the reins. The stallion immediately broke into a gallop, eager to work off the powerful energy of his impeccable bloodlines. Mr. Knightley leaned into the wind, hoping the elements would slap some sense into his traitorous body.

Mr. 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. His dashing good looks and his crooked smile made him greatly pursued by the ladies; 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 his good looks and crooked smile, 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 — falling in love was a disagreeable fault in the business of matrimony — 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. She soon cared less for the handsomeness of her husband and his doating nature than the comfort of a posh living style. 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.

Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills, as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years’ marriage, he was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his mother’s, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek, and his own situation to improve as he could.

A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury, where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation and the pleasures of society — he could still turn a pretty lady’s head, though that concerned him less now after having been married — the next eighteen or twenty years of his life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy competence — enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining Highbury, which he had always longed for — enough to marry a woman as portionless even as Miss Taylor, who would love him as much as he loved her, and to live according to the wishes of his own friendly and social disposition.

It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth that had so carried him away with the first Mrs. Weston, it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to; but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that, even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it. To touch and be touched with great passion due from love rather than for what was to be gained.

He had only himself to please in his choice: his fortune was his own; for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his uncle’s heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore, that he should ever want his father’s assistance. His father had no apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her husband entirely; but it was not in Mr. Weston’s nature to imagine that any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and was proud of him; and his fond report of him as a very fine young man had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a kind of common concern.

Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit his father had been often talked of but never achieved.

Now, upon his father’s marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them; and the hope strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received. “I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter, indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life.”