No More Learning

She thought
well of Frank in almost every respect; and, what was more, she loved him
very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a
great deal of reason, and at least equal affection--but she had too much
to urge for Emma’s attention; it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or
to Donwell; she forgot to attempt to listen; and when Mrs. Weston ended
with, “We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know,
but I hope it will soon come,” she was obliged to pause before she
answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at
all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for.

“Are you well, my Emma? ” was Mrs. Weston’s parting question.

“Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me
intelligence of the letter as soon as possible. ”

Mrs. Weston’s communications furnished Emma with more food for
unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her
sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted
not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the
envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause.
Had she followed Mr. Knightley’s known wishes, in paying that attention
to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her
better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured
to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all
probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her
now. --Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as
an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what
was she? --Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends;
that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax’s confidence on this
important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as
she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the
abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she
had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so
unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a
subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane’s feelings, by the
levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill’s. Of all the sources of evil
surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded
that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a
perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without
her having stabbed Jane Fairfax’s peace in a thousand instances; and on
Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no
more.

The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield.
The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and
nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was
despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights
the longer visible.

The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably
comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter’s side, and by
exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded
her of their first forlorn tete-a-tete, on the evening of Mrs. Weston’s
wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea,
and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of
Hartfield’s attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly
be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the
approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them,
no pleasures had been lost. --But her present forebodings she feared
would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now,
was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that
might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that
might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be
comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the
spirits only of ruined happiness.

The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than
herself; and Mrs. Weston’s heart and time would be occupied by it.
They should lose her; and, probably, in great measure, her husband
also. --Frank Churchill would return among them no more; and Miss
Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to
Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe.
All that were good would be withdrawn; and if to these losses, the
loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or
of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer
coming there for his evening comfort! --No longer walking in at all
hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their’s! --How was
it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet’s sake;
if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet’s society
all that he wanted; if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first,
the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best
blessings of existence; what could be increasing Emma’s wretchedness but
the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her
own work?

When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from
a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a
few seconds--and the only source whence any thing like consolation
or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better
conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might
be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it
would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and
leave her less to regret when it were gone.



CHAPTER XIII


The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and
the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at
Hartfield--but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a
softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was
summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma
resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite
sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after
a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they
might gradually introduce; and on Mr. Perry’s coming in soon after
dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time
in hurrying into the shrubbery. --There, with spirits freshened, and
thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr.
Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her. --It
was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had
been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles
distant. --There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She
must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The
“How d’ye do’s” were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after
their mutual friends; they were all well. --When had he left them? --Only
that morning. He must have had a wet ride. --Yes. --He meant to walk with
her, she found. “He had just looked into the dining-room, and as he was
not wanted there, preferred being out of doors. ”--She thought he neither
looked nor spoke cheerfully; and the first possible cause for it,
suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his
plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had
been received.

They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking
at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to
give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to
speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet; he might be watching for
encouragement to begin. --She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the
way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could
not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She
considered--resolved--and, trying to smile, began--

“You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather
surprize you. ”

“Have I? ” said he quietly, and looking at her; “of what nature? ”

“Oh! the best nature in the world--a wedding. ”

After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he
replied,

“If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that
already. ”

“How is it possible? ” cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards
him; for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called
at Mrs. Goddard’s in his way.

“I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and
at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened. ”

Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more
composure,

“_You_ probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have
had your suspicions. --I have not forgotten that you once tried to give
me a caution. --I wish I had attended to it--but--(with a sinking voice
and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness. ”

For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having
excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within
his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone
of great sensibility, speaking low,

“Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound. --Your own excellent
sense--your exertions for your father’s sake--I know you will not allow
yourself--. ” Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more
broken and subdued accent, “The feelings of the warmest
friendship--Indignation--Abominable scoundrel! ”--And in a louder,
steadier tone, he concluded with, “He will soon be gone. They will soon
be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for _her_. She deserves a better fate. ”

Emma understood him; and as soon as she could recover from the flutter
of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied,

“You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right. --
I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was
going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed
of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may
well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason
to regret that I was not in the secret earlier. ”

“Emma! ” cried he, looking eagerly at her, “are you, indeed? ”--but
checking himself--“No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am pleased
that you can say even so much. --He is no object of regret, indeed! and
it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment
of more than your reason. --Fortunate that your affections were not
farther entangled! --I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure
myself as to the degree of what you felt--I could only be certain that
there was a preference--and a preference which I never believed him to
deserve. --He is a disgrace to the name of man. --And is he to be rewarded
with that sweet young woman? --Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable
creature. ”

“Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--“I
am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your
error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I
have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been
at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural
for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse. --But I never
have. ”

He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would
not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his
clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in
his opinion. She went on, however.

“I have very little to say for my own conduct. --I was tempted by his
attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased. --An old story,
probably--a common case--and no more than has happened to hundreds of my
sex before; and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up
as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation.
He was the son of Mr. Weston--he was continually here--I always found
him very pleasant--and, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the
causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last--my vanity
was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however--for some
time, indeed--I have had no idea of their meaning any thing. --I thought
them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side.
He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been
attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He
never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real
situation with another. --It was his object to blind all about him; and
no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself--except
that I was _not_ blinded--that it was my good fortune--that, in short, I
was somehow or other safe from him. ”

She had hoped for an answer here--for a few words to say that her
conduct was at least intelligible; but he was silent; and, as far as she
could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone,
he said,

“I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill. --I can suppose,
however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has
been but trifling. --And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he
may yet turn out well. --With such a woman he has a chance. --I have no
motive for wishing him ill--and for her sake, whose happiness will be
involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him
well. ”

“I have no doubt of their being happy together,” said Emma; “I believe
them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached. ”

“He is a most fortunate man! ” returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. “So
early in life--at three-and-twenty--a period when, if a man chuses a
wife, he generally chuses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such
a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation,
has before him! --Assured of the love of such a woman--the disinterested
love, for Jane Fairfax’s character vouches for her disinterestedness;
every thing in his favour,--equality of situation--I mean, as far as
regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important;
equality in every point but one--and that one, since the purity of her
heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it
will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants. --A man would always
wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from;
and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of _her_ regard, must,
I think, be the happiest of mortals. --Frank Churchill is, indeed, the
favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good. --He meets
with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even
weary her by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought
round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found
her superior. --His aunt is in the way. --His aunt dies. --He has only to
speak. --His friends are eager to promote his happiness. --He had used
every body ill--and they are all delighted to forgive him. --He is a
fortunate man indeed! ”

“You speak as if you envied him. ”

“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy. ”

Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence
of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if
possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally
different--the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for
breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,

“You will not ask me what is the point of envy. --You are determined, I
see, to have no curiosity. --You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma,
I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the
next moment. ”

“Oh! then, don’t speak it, don’t speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a
little time, consider, do not commit yourself. ”

“Thank you,” said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not
another syllable followed.

Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in
her--perhaps to consult her;--cost her what it would, she would listen.
She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give
just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence,
relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more
intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his. --They had
reached the house.

“You are going in, I suppose? ” said he.

“No,”--replied Emma--quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which
he still spoke--“I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not
gone. ” And, after proceeding a few steps, she added--“I stopped you
ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you
pain. --But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or
to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation--as
a friend, indeed, you may command me. --I will hear whatever you like. I
will tell you exactly what I think. ”

“As a friend! ”--repeated Mr. Knightley. --“Emma, that I fear is a
word--No, I have no wish--Stay, yes, why should I hesitate? --I
have gone too far already for concealment. --Emma, I accept your
offer--Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to
you as a friend. --Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding? ”

He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression
of his eyes overpowered her.

“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever
the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved
Emma--tell me at once. Say ‘No,’ if it is to be said. ”--She could
really say nothing. --“You are silent,” he cried, with great animation;
“absolutely silent! at present I ask no more. ”

Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment.
The
dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most
prominent feeling.

“I cannot make speeches, Emma:” he soon resumed; and in a tone of
such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably
convincing. --“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it
more. But you know what I am. --You hear nothing but truth from me. --I
have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other
woman in England would have borne it. --Bear with the truths I would
tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The
manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have
been a very indifferent lover. --But you understand me. --Yes, you see,
you understand my feelings--and will return them if you can. At present,
I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice. ”

While he spoke, Emma’s mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful
velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to
catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet’s
hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a
delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every
thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet
had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her
agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all
received as discouragement from herself. --And not only was there time
for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there
was time also to rejoice that Harriet’s secret had not escaped her, and
to resolve that it need not, and should not. --It was all the service
she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of
sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his
affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the
two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at
once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not
marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and
with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that
could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her
friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her
judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever
been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal
and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth. --She spoke
then, on being so entreated. --What did she say? --Just what she ought,
of course. A lady always does. --She said enough to shew there need not
be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at
one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence,
as for the time crushed every hope;--she had begun by refusing to hear
him. --The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;--her proposal of
taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had
just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary! --She felt its
inconsistency; but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it,
and seek no farther explanation.

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;
seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a
little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is
mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material. --Mr.
Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she
possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.

He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had
followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come,
in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement, with no
selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an
opening, to soothe or to counsel her. --The rest had been the work of
the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The
delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill,
of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth
to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself;--but
it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of
eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his
attempt to attach her. --The superior hopes which gradually opened were
so much the more enchanting. --The affection, which he had been asking
to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his! --Within half
an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to
something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name.

_Her_ change was equal. --This one half-hour had given to each the same
precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same
degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust. --On his side, there had been
a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation,
of Frank Churchill. --He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank
Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably
enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill
that had taken him from the country. --The Box Hill party had decided
him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again
such permitted, encouraged attentions. --He had gone to learn to be
indifferent. --But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much
domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form
in it; Isabella was too much like Emma--differing only in those striking
inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before
him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer. --He had
stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day--till this very morning’s
post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax. --Then, with the gladness
which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never
believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much
fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no
longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly
after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures,
faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.

He had found her agitated and low. --Frank Churchill was a villain. --
He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s
character was not desperate. --She was his own Emma, by hand and word,
when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank
Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.



CHAPTER XIV


What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from
what she had brought out! --she had then been only daring to hope for
a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisite flutter of
happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be
greater when the flutter should have passed away.

They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often
it had been collected! --and how often had her eyes fallen on the same
shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the
western sun! --But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing
like it; and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her
usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive
daughter.

Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the
breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously
hoping might not have taken cold from his ride. --Could he have seen the
heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs; but without the
most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest
perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either,
he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had
received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much self-contentment,
totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return.

As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma’s fever continued;
but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and
subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax
for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points
to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some
alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling
the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort
of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father,
it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley
would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most
solemn resolution of never quitting her father. --She even wept over
the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an
engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of
drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him. --How
to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare
her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement;
how to appear least her enemy? --On these subjects, her perplexity
and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and
again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever
surrounded it. --She could only resolve at last, that she would still
avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by
letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed
just now for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme
more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation
for her to Brunswick Square. --Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;
and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement. --She did
not think it in Harriet’s nature to escape being benefited by novelty
and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children. --At any rate,
it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom
every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the
evil day, when they must all be together again.

She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which
left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking
up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half
an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him,
literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a
proper share of the happiness of the evening before.

He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the
slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was
brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessed what it
must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it. --She was now
in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she
wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding
any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it. --It must be
waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;--a
note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to
Mrs. Weston.

“I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the
enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely
a doubt of its happy effect. --I think we shall never materially disagree
about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface. --We
are quite well. --This letter has been the cure of all the little
nervousness I have been feeling lately. --I did not quite like your looks
on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never
own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east
wind. --I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday
afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last
night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill.

“Yours ever,
“A. W. ”

[To Mrs. Weston. ]


WINDSOR-JULY.
MY DEAR MADAM,

“If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be
expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and
indulgence. --You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of
even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct. --But
I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage
rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be
humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for
pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,
and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence. --You
must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I
first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which
was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place
myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.
I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right,
I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and
casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my
difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to
require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we
parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the
creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement. --Had she refused, I
should have gone mad. --But you will be ready to say, what was your
hope in doing this? --What did you look forward to? --To any thing, every
thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,
perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of
good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her
promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation,
I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband’s son, and
the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no
inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of. --See
me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to
Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have
been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till
Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you
will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father’s compassion, by
reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long
I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very
happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to
reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal,
the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which
excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With
the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss
Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest
humiliation. --A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his
opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to. --My behaviour
to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought. --In order to
assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than
an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately
thrown. --I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but
I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been
convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any
selfish views to go on. --Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is,
she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and
that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me,
was as much my conviction as my wish. --She received my attentions with
an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.
We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those
attentions were her due, and were felt to be so. --Whether Miss Woodhouse
began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight,
I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was
within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not
without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me,
at least in some degree. --She may not have surmised the whole, but her
quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find,
whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it
did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it.
I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude
for her attentions to Miss Fairfax. --I hope this history of my conduct
towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation
of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against
Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and
procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes
of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly
affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as
myself. --Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight,
you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to
get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.
If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account. --Of
the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that
its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never
have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her. --The
delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam,
is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly
hope, know her thoroughly yourself. --No description can describe her.
She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never
was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own
merit. --Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw,
I have heard from her. --She gives a good account of her own health; but
as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion
of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread
of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without
delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few
minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and
I am not much better yet; still insane either from happiness or
misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her
excellence and patience, and my uncle’s generosity, I am mad with joy:
but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little
I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her
again! --But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me
to encroach. --I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard
all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail
yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness
with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event
of the 26th ult. , as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the
happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures,
but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to
lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she
would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and
refinement. --But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered
into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off
abruptly, to recollect and compose myself. --I have been walking over
the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of
my letter what it ought to be. --It is, in fact, a most mortifying
retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that
my manners to Miss W. , in being unpleasant to Miss F. , were highly
blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough. --My
plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient. --She was
displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand
occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even
cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and
subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have
escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known. --We quarrelled. --
Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell? --_There_ every little
dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late;
I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she
would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then
thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very
natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the
world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable
particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a
proposal which might have made every previous caution useless? --Had we
been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must
have been suspected. --I was mad enough, however, to resent. --I doubted
her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when,
provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect
of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W. , as it would have been
impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in
a form of words perfectly intelligible to me. --In short, my dear
madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine; and
I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with
you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with
her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to
be reconciled in time; but I was the injured person, injured by her
coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first
advances. --I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of
the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly
suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon
her appears in the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she
found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that
officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the
bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel
with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards
myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it
which that woman has known. --‘Jane,’ indeed! --You will observe that I
have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you.
Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between
the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the
insolence of imaginary superiority.