Chapter X

Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who lived a little way out of Highbury.

Their road was down Vicarage Lane, containing the blessed abode of Mr. Elton. Emma’s remark was —

“There it is. There you will go some day.”

Harriet’s was —

“Oh, what a sweet house! – How beautiful! – There are the yellow curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”

“I do not often walk this way now,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but then there will be an inducement.”

Harriet said,

“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or going to be married! so charming as you are!”

Emma laughed, and replied,

“If I am charming, Harriet, it is not quite enough to marry; I must find other people charming – one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little intention of ever marrying at all.”

“Ah! – so you say; but I cannot believe it.”

“I must see somebody very superior to anyone I have seen yet, to be tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, is out of the question: and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. If I were to marry, I must expect to repent it.”

“Dear me! – it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”

“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”

“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”

“That is a terrible image, Harriet; and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly – so satisfied – so smiling – so undistinguishing and unfastidious – and so apt to tell everything relative to everybody about me, I would marry tomorrow.”

“But still, you will be an old maid! and that’s so dreadful!”

“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! But a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste of everybody, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her mind.”

“Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you grow old?”

“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman’s usual occupations will be as open to me then as they are now. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much, to care about. My nephews and nieces! – I shall often have a niece with me.”

“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece? That is, I know you must have seen her a hundred times – but are you acquainted?”

“Oh! yes; Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round and round again. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.”

Harriet could just answer, “Oh! yes, yes,” before Mr. Elton joined them. They now walked on together quietly, when a sudden resolution of getting Harriet into the house, made Emma find something wrong about her boot. She broke the lace off short, and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to entreat them to stop.

“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribboon or string, or anything just to keep my boot on.”

Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house. The room they were taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive her assistance. She was obliged to leave the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her appearance.

The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. But he had not come to the point. He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet nothing serious.

“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma; “he advances inch by inch.”

Chapter XI

Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma’s power to superintend his happiness. The coming of her sister’s family was so very near at hand, that it became henceforth her prime object of interest. The lovers might advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.

Mr. Woodhouse was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in forestalling Isabella’s visit. He thought much of the evils of the journey for her. Mrs. Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; a devoted wife, a good mother, and so tenderly attached to her father and sister that a warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault in any of them.

Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man; domestic, and respectable in his private character; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an ill-tempered man, but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing.

They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter’s attention to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last.

“Ah, my dear,” said he, “poor Miss Taylor – It is a grievous business.”

“Oh yes, sir,” cried she with ready sympathy, “how you must miss her! And dear Emma, too! What a dreadful loss to you both! I have been so grieved for you. I could not imagine how you could possibly do without her. It is a sad change indeed. But I hope she is pretty well, sir.”

“Pretty well, my dear – I hope – pretty well. – I do not know but that the place agrees with her tolerably.”

“And do you see her often?” asked Isabella in the plaintive tone which just suited her father.

Mr. Woodhouse hesitated. “Not so often, my dear, as I could wish.”

“But Mr. Weston is really as kind as herself, Papa, isn’t he?”

“Just as he should be,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “To be sure, I cannot deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty often – but then – she is always obliged to go away again.”

“I think, indeed,” said John Knightley pleasantly, “that Mr. Weston has some rights as well. And where is the young man, his son? Has he been here – or has he not?”

“He has not been here yet,” replied Emma. “There was a strong expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.”

“But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,” said her father.

“He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very proper, handsome letter it was. She showed it to me. Whether it was his own idea you know, one cannot tell. He is young, and his uncle, perhaps – ”

“My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.”

“Three-and-twenty! – is he indeed? Well, time does fly indeed! – and my memory is very bad. However, it was an exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal of pleasure. And it was signed ‘F. C. Weston Churchill.’ – I remember that perfectly.”

“How very pleasing and proper of him!” cried the good-hearted Mrs. Knightley. “I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with him. To give up one’s child! I really never could think well of anybody who proposed such a thing to anybody else.”

“Mr. Weston is rather an easy, cheerful-tempered man,” observed Mr. John Knightley coolly, “than a man of strong feelings.”