Emma (27 page)

He had caught both substance and shadow—both fortune and affection, and was just the happy man he ought to be, talking only of himself and his own concerns—expecting to be congratulated—ready to be laughed at—and with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more cautiously gallant.

The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for, and when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which a certain glance of Mrs Cole’s did not seem to contradict, that when he next entered Highbury he would bring his bride.

During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him, but just enough to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension now spread over his air. She was in fact beginning very much to wonder that she had ever thought him pleasing at all, and his sight was so inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that, except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured of never seeing him again. She wished him very well, but he gave her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most satisfaction.

The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be prevented—many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A Mrs Elton would be an excuse for any change of intercourse, former intimacy might sink without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility again.

Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough for Mr Elton, no doubt, accomplished enough for Highbury—handsome enough—to look plain, probably, by Harriet’s side. As to connection, there Emma was perfectly easy, persuaded that after all his own vaunted claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article, truth seemed attainable.
What
she was must be uncertain, but
who
she was might be found out, and setting aside the ten thousand pounds, it did not appear that she was at all Harriet’s superior. She brought no name, no blood, no alliance.

Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters of a Bristol—merchant, of course, he must be called, but as the whole of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath, but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol, for though the father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained—in the law line—nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the law line, and with him the daughter had lived. Emma guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise. And all the grandeur of the connection seemed dependent on the elder sister, who was
very
well
married
, to a gentleman in a
great
way
, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the history, that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.

Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had talked her into love, but, alas! She was not so easily to be talked out of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet’s mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another, he certainly would indeed, nothing could be clearer, even a Robert Martin would have been sufficient, but nothing else she feared would cure her. Harriet was one of those who, having once begun, would be always in love. And now, poor girl! She was considerably worse from this reappearance of Mr Elton.

She was always having a glimpse of him somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once, but two or three times every day Harriet was sure
just
to meet with him, or
just
to miss him,
just
to hear his voice, or see his shoulder,
just
to have something occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of surprise and conjecture. She was moreover perpetually hearing about him, for excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who saw no fault in Mr Elton, and found nothing so interesting as the discussion of his concerns, and every report, therefore, every guess—all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss Hawkins’ happiness, and continual observation of how much he seemed attached! His air as he walked by the house—the very sitting of his hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love!

Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet’s mind, Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr Elton predominated, sometimes the Martins, and each was occasionally useful as a check to the other. Mr Elton’s engagement had been the cure of the agitation of meeting Mr Martin. The unhappiness produced by the knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth Martin’s calling at Mrs Goddard’s a few days afterwards. Harriet had not been at home, but a note had been prepared and left for her, written in the very style to touch, a small mixture of reproach, with a great deal of kindness, and till Mr Elton himself appeared, she had been much occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return, and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr Elton, in person, had driven away all such cares. While he stayed, the Martins were forgotten, and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again, Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best for her to return Elizabeth Martin’s visit.

How that visit was to be acknowledged—what would be necessary—and what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration. Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would be ingratitude. It must not be, and yet the danger of a renewal of the acquaintance!

After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better than Harriet’s returning the visit, but in a way that, if they had understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again so soon as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree of intimacy was chosen for the future.

She could think of nothing better, and though there was something in it which her own heart could not approve—something of ingratitude, merely glossed over—it must be done, or what would become of Harriet?

Chapter Five

Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her friend called for her at Mrs Goddard’s, her evil stars had led her to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to ‘
The Rev. Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath’
, was to be seen under the operation of being lifted into the butcher’s cart, which was to convey it to where the coaches passed, and everything in this world, excepting that trunk and the direction, was consequently a blank.

She went however, and when they reached the farm, and she was to be put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of everything which had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to revive a little local agitation. And when they parted, Emma observed her to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour. She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who was married, and settled in Donwell.

The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again, and Miss Smith, receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the gravel walk—a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with her seemingly with ceremonious civility.

Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was feeling too much, but at last Emma collected from her enough to understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating. She had seen only Mrs Martin and the two girls. They had received her doubtingly, if not coolly, and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had been talked almost all the time—till just at last, when Mrs Martin’s saying all of a sudden that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner.

In that very room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window.
He
had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour, the party, the occasion—to feel the same consciousness, the same regrets—to be ready to return to the same good understanding, and they were just growing again like themselves—Harriet, as Emma must suspect, as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy—when the carriage reappeared, and all was over.

The style of the visit, and the shortness of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months ago! Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a
little
higher should have been enough, but as it was, how could she have done otherwise? Impossible! She could not repent. They must be separated, but there was a great deal of pain in the process—so much to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to procure it.

Her mind was quite sick of Mr Elton and the Martins. The refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary. It lacked only the privacy of solitary recounting with Mrs Weston to tell her all that had transpired in the passing days, including the romantic expectations that consumed Harriet’s interest, but most assuredly the one more dear to Emma’s heart than even that. It was not to be, however, not at present. At present the whole of her capabilities must be dedicated to Harriet and the revival of her spirits forthwith. Emma’s own private thoughts would have to wait.

It was a good scheme, but on driving to the door they heard that neither “master nor mistress was at home”. They had both been out some time—the man believed they were gone to Hartfield.

“This is too bad,” cried Emma, as they turned away. “And now we shall just miss them—too provoking! I do not know when I have been so disappointed.” And she leant back in the corner, to indulge her murmurs, or to reason them away, probably a little of both—such being the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind.

Presently the carriage stopped. She looked up. It was stopped by Mr and Mrs Weston, who were standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound—for Mr Weston immediately accosted her with, “How d’ye do? How d’ye do? We have been sitting with your father—glad to see him so well. Frank comes tomorrow—I had a letter this morning—we see him tomorrow by dinner-time to a certainty—he is at Oxford today, and he comes for a whole fortnight, I knew it would be so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have stayed three days. I was always glad he did not come at Christmas. Now we are going to have just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall enjoy him completely, everything has turned out exactly as we could wish.”

There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the influence of such a happy face as Mr Weston’s, confirmed as it all was by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not less to the purpose. To know that
she
thought his coming certain was enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits. The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming, and in the rapidity of half a moment’s thought, she hoped Mr Elton would now be talked of no more.

Mr Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command, as well as the route and the method of his journey, and she listened, and smiled, and congratulated.

“I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.

Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his wife.

“We had better move on, Mr Weston,” said she, “we are detaining the girls.”

“Well, well, I am ready”—and turning again to Emma—“but you must not be expecting such a
very
fine young man, you have only had
my
account, you know, I dare say he is really nothing extraordinary.” Though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were speaking a very different conviction.

Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a manner that appropriated nothing.

“Think of me tomorrow, my dear Emma, about four o’clock,” was Mrs Weston’s parting injunction, spoken with some anxiety, and meant only for her.

“Four o’clock! Depend upon it, he will be here by three,” was Mr Weston’s quick amendment, and so ended a most satisfactory meeting.

Emma’s spirits were mounted quite up to happiness, everything wore a different air, James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least must soon be coming out, and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.