Emma and the Werewolves (10 page)

“
I cannot help wondering at
your knowing so little of Emma as to say any such thing. What!
think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his merit Mr.
Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend! Not
regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom I
could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should
think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine
are very different. I must think your statement by no means fair.
You are not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very
differently by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the
richest of the two, but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank
in society. The sphere in which she moves is much above his. It
would be a degradation.”

“
A degradation to
illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable,
intelligent gentleman-farmer!”

“
As to the circumstances of
her birth, though in a legal sense she may be called Nobody, it
will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay for the offence of
others, by being held below the level of those with whom she is
brought up. There can scarcely be a doubt that her father is a
gentleman—and a gentleman of fortune. Her allowance is very
liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or
comfort. That she is a gentleman’s daughter, is indubitable to me;
that she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I
apprehend, will deny. She is superior to Mr. Robert
Martin.”

“
Whoever might be her
parents,” said Mr. Knightley, “whoever may have had the charge of
her, it does not appear to have been any part of their plan to
introduce her into what you would call good society. After
receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs.
Goddard’s hands to shift as she can; to move, in short, in Mrs.
Goddard’s line, to have Mrs. Goddard’s acquaintance. Her friends
evidently thought this good enough for her; and it was good enough.
She desired nothing better herself. Till you chose to turn her into
a friend, her mind had no distaste for her own set, nor any
ambition beyond it. She was as happy as possible with the Martins
in the summer. She had no sense of superiority then. If she has it
now, you have given it. You have been no friend to Harriet Smith,
Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded so far, if he had
not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to him. I know him
well. He has too much real feeling to address any woman on the
haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is the farthest
from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had
encouragement.”

It was most convenient to Emma not to make a
direct reply to this assertion; she chose rather to take up her own
line of the subject again.

“
You are a very warm friend
to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before, are unjust to Harriet.
Harriet’s claims to marry well are not so contemptible as you
represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she has better sense
than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her
understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point,
however, and supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty
and good-natured, let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses
them, they are not trivial recommendations to the world in general,
for she is, in fact, a beautiful girl, and must be thought so by
ninety-nine people out of an hundred; and till it appears that men
are much more philosophic on the subject of beauty than they are
generally supposed; till they do fall in love with well-informed
minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with such loveliness as
Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought after, of
having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a claim
to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim,
comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and
manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to
be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex
in general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the
highest claims a woman could possess.”

“
Upon my word, Emma, to
hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost enough to make me
think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply it as you
do.”

“
To be sure!” cried she
playfully. “I know that is the feeling of you all. I know that such
a girl as Harriet is exactly what every man delights in—what at
once bewitches his senses and satisfies his judgment. Oh! Harriet
may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to marry, she is the
very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just entering into
life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at because she
does not accept the first offer she receives? No—pray let her have
time to look about her.”

“
I have always thought it a
very foolish intimacy,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “though I
have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive that it will be
a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up with such
ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that, in a
little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.
Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
Nothing so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too
high. Miss Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so
fast, though she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you
may chuse to say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not
be very fond of connecting themselves with a girl of such
obscurity—and most prudent men would be afraid of the inconvenience
and disgrace they might be involved in, when the mystery of her
parentage came to be revealed. Let her marry Robert Martin, and she
is safe, respectable, and happy for ever; but if you encourage her
to expect to marry greatly, and teach her to be satisfied with
nothing less than a man of consequence and large fortune, she may
be a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard’s all the rest of her life—or,
at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry somebody or
other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the old
writing-master’s son.”

“
We think so very
differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there can be no use
in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more angry.
But as to my letting her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible; she
has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any
second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused
him, whatever it may be; and as to the refusal itself, I will not
pretend to say that I might not influence her a little; but I
assure you there was very little for me or for any body to do. His
appearance is so much against him, and his manner so bad, that if
she ever were disposed to favour him, she is not now. I can
imagine, that before she had seen any body superior, she might
tolerate him. He was the brother of her friends, and he took pains
to please her; and altogether, having seen nobody better (that must
have been his great assistant) she might not, while she was at
Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case is altered now. She
knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a gentleman in
education and manner has any chance with Harriet.”

“
Nonsense, errant nonsense,
as ever was talked!” cried Mr. Knightley. “Robert Martin’s manners
have sense, sincerity, and good-humour to recommend them; and his
mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could
understand.”

Emma made no answer, and tried to look
cheerfully unconcerned, but was really feeling uncomfortable and
wanting him very much to be gone. She did not repent what she had
done; she still thought herself a better judge of such a point of
female right and refinement than he could be; but yet she had a
sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general, which made
her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him
sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable.
Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one
attempt on Emma’s side to talk of the weather, but he made no
answer. He was thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at
last in these words.

“
Robert Martin has no great
loss—if he can but think so; and I hope it will not be long before
he does. Your views for Harriet are best known to yourself; but as
you make no secret of your love of match-making, it is fair to
suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have; and as a
friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think
it will be all labour in vain.”

Emma laughed and disclaimed. He
continued,

“
Depend upon it, Elton will
not do. Elton is a very good sort of man, and a very respectable
vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make an imprudent
match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any body.
Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is as
well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet’s.
He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great
favourite wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in
unreserved moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced
that he does not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak
with great animation of a large family of young ladies that his
sisters are intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds
apiece.”

“
I am very much obliged to
you,” said Emma, laughing again. “If I had set my heart on Mr.
Elton’s marrying Harriet, it would have been very kind to open my
eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to myself. I have
done with match-making indeed. I could never hope to equal my own
doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well.”

“Good morning to you,” said
he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was very much vexed. He
felt the disappointment of the young man, and was mortified to have
been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had given; and
the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair, was
provoking him exceedingly.
He stormed from
Hartfield, his thoughts for the first time in a while upon
something other than his duty. As he strode down the path he
normally traveled, he shook off the worries of Emma and her game of
match making, knowing he had far greater things to attend to,
though the distraction had been welcomed if vexing. As he rounded a
bend in the path where a crooked tree stood leaning in front of
him, a twig snapped in the bush behind him. He felt power flow
through him and knew instantly what was about. Knightley whirled,
producing a weapon from under the cuff of his sleeve. With a flick
of his skilled wrist, the blade flew straight and true. It struck
the monster dead on in its snout as it lunged at him. The blade
embedded itself deep in the thing’s cheek, leaving a ghastly slash
where it had sliced the creature in its flight as the thing tried
to turn its head to dodge the attack. The wolf let out a snort and
stood upright, clawed hand yanking the weapon from where it stuck,
and tossed it to the ground.

Knightley laughed as the thing towered
before him, a massive nine-foot-tall body of rage and pain. “I
thought your kind kept the night?” he taunted it. “Doesn’t the sun
hurt your eyes?” It roared and sprang at him in a fit of fury.

Knightley ducked under it as two more blades
found their way into his hands from where they rested secretly in
the confines of his boots. With all his strength, he drove them up
and into the thing’s underbelly as he rose up again. Twisting the
blades, he disemboweled the monster where it stood. Strands of
intestines poured from the wounds in a shower of blood. A gasp
escaped the thing’s lips as it toppled to the dirt and began to
shift into human form, its life leaving its body.

“Too easy,” Knightley said as he wiped the
blades clean on the leg of his pants. This was clearly an attempt
on his life. The things knew who he was and were frightened or
angered enough by him to extend their actions to when the sun was
high in the sky. This did not bode well for either himself or
Highbury. The creatures growing bolder could only mean that more
and greater death was soon to come.

He looked down upon the body of the poor boy
he had slain and wished as always there was time to give him a
proper burial. Knightley bent beside the corpse and gently closed
the boy’s eyes with the tips of his fingers as he said a prayer to
the Father in Heaven for the lad’s soul.

Having done all he could, he stood and
hurried off on his way. There was much to be done. This assault
could not go unanswered. When the sun fell, it would be his turn to
hunt once more.

Emma remained in a state of
vexation too; but there was more indistinctness in the causes of
her’s, than in his. She did not always feel so absolutely satisfied
with herself, so entirely convinced that her opinions were right
and her adversary’s wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He walked off in more
complete self-approbation than he left for her. She worried about
him despite her anger but she was not so materially cast down,
however, but that a little time and the return of Harriet were very
adequate restoratives. Harriet’s staying away so long was beginning
to make her uneasy. The possibility of the young man’s coming to
Mrs. Goddard’s that morning, and meeting with Harriet and pleading
his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread of such a failure
after all became the prominent uneasiness; and when Harriet
appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any such
reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which
settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr.
Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which
woman’s friendship and woman’s feelings would not
justify.