Emma and the Werewolves (62 page)

Harriet was standing at one of the windows.
Emma turned round to look at her in consternation, and hastily
said, “Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley’s returning your
affection?”

“
Yes,” replied Harriet
modestly, but not fearfully, “I must say that I have.”

Emma’s eyes were instantly
withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, in a fixed attitude,
for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient for making her
acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, once opening to
suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched—she admitted—she
acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse that Harriet
should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank Churchill?
Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet’s having some
hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an
arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!

Her own conduct, as well as
her own heart, was before her in the same few minutes. She saw it
all with a clearness which had never blessed her before. How
improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How inconsiderate, how
indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been her conduct!
What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her with
dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the
world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of
all these demerits—some concern for her own appearance, and a
strong sense of justice by Harriet—(there would be no need of
compassion to the girl who believed herself loved by Mr.
Knightley—but justice required that she should not be made unhappy
by any coldness now,) gave Emma the resolution to sit and endure
farther with calmness, with even apparent kindness. For her own
advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost extent of Harriet’s
hopes should be enquired into; and Harriet had done nothing to
forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily
formed and maintained—or to deserve to be slighted by the person,
whose counsels had never led her right. Rousing from reflection,
therefore, and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again,
and, in a more inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to
the subject which had first introduced it, the wonderful story of
Jane Fairfax, that was quite sunk and lost. Neither of them thought
but of Mr. Knightley and themselves.

Harriet, who had been
standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad to be called from
it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and such a
friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give the
history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight. Emma’s
tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed
than Harriet’s, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady;
but her mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of
self, such a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden
and perplexing emotions, must create. She listened with much inward
suffering, but with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail.
Methodical, or well arranged, or very well delivered, it could not
be expected to be; but it contained, when separated from all the
feebleness and tautology of the narration, a substance to sink her
spirit—especially with the corroborating circumstances, which her
own memory brought in favour of Mr. Knightley’s most improved
opinion of Harriet.

Harriet had been conscious
of a difference in his behaviour ever since those two decisive
dances. Emma knew that he had, on that occasion, found her much
superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at least from
the time of Miss Woodhouse’s encouraging her to think of him,
Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more
than he had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a
different manner towards her; a manner of kindness and sweetness!
Latterly she had been more and more aware of it. When they had been
all walking together, he had so often come and walked by her, and
talked so very delightfully! He seemed to want to be acquainted
with her. Emma knew it to have been very much the case. She had
often observed the change, to almost the same extent. Harriet
repeated expressions of approbation and praise from him—and Emma
felt them to be in the closest agreement with what she had known of
his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for being without art or
affectation, for having simple, honest, generous, feelings. She
knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet; he had dwelt on
them to her more than once. Much that lived in Harriet’s memory,
many little particulars of the notice she had received from him, a
look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment
implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because
unsuspected, by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an
hour’s relation, and contained multiplied proofs to her who had
seen them, had passed undiscerned by her who now heard them; but
the two latest occurrences to be mentioned, the two of strongest
promise to Harriet, were not without some degree of witness from
Emma herself. The first, was his walking with her apart from the
others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they had been walking
some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as she was
convinced) to draw her from the rest to himself—and at first, he
had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done
before, in a very particular way indeed! (Harriet could not recall
it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her
affections were engaged. But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse)
appeared likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began
talking about farming: The second, was his having sat talking with
her nearly half an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the
very last morning of his being at Hartfield—though, when he first
came in, he had said that he could not stay five minutes—and his
having told her, during their conversation, that though he must go
to London, it was very much against his inclination that he left
home at all, which was much more (as Emma felt) than he had
acknowledged to her. The superior degree of confidence towards
Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her severe
pain.

On the subject of the first
of the two circumstances, she did, after a little reflection,
venture the following question. “Might he not? Is not it possible,
that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of your
affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin—he might have Mr.
Martin’s interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with
spirit.

“
Mr. Martin! No indeed!
There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I know better now, than
to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it.”

When Harriet had closed her evidence, she
appealed to her dear Miss Woodhouse, to say whether she had not
good ground for hope.

“
I never should have
presumed to think of it at first,” said she, “but for you. You told
me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour be the rule of
mine—and so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may deserve him;
and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so very
wonderful.”

The bitter feelings occasioned by this
speech, the many bitter feelings, made the utmost exertion
necessary on Emma’s side, to enable her to say on reply,

“Harriet, I will only venture to declare,
that Mr. Knightley is the last man in the world, who would
intentionally give any woman the idea of his feeling for her more
than he really does.”

Harriet seemed ready to
worship her friend for a sentence so satisfactory; and Emma was
only saved from raptures and fondness, which at that moment would
have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her father’s footsteps.
He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too much agitated to
encounter him. “She could not compose herself—Mr. Woodhouse would
be alarmed—she had better go;” —with most ready encouragement from
her friend, therefore, she passed off through another door—and the
moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of Emma’s
feelings: “Oh! that I had never seen her!”

The rest of the day, the
following night, were hardly enough for her thoughts. She was
bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had rushed on her
within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a fresh
surprize; and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to her.
How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had
been thus practising on herself, and living under! The blunders,
the blindness of her own head and heart! she sat still, she walked
about, she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery—in every
place, every posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly;
that she had been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree;
that she had been imposing on herself in a degree yet more
mortifying; that she was wretched, and should probably find this
day but the beginning of wretchedness.

To understand, thoroughly understand her own
heart, was the first endeavour. To that point went every leisure
moment which her father’s claims on her allowed, and every moment
of involuntary absence of mind.

How long had Mr. Knightley
been so dear to her, as every feeling declared him now to be? When
had his influence, such influence begun? When had he succeeded to
that place in her affection, which Frank Churchill had once, for a
short period, occupied? She looked back; she compared the
two—compared them, as they had always stood in her estimation, from
the time of the latter’s becoming known to her—and as they must at
any time have been compared by her, had it—oh! had it, by any
blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison. She
saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr.
Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her
had not been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading
herself, in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been
entirely under a delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart—and,
in short, that she had never really cared for Frank Churchill at
all!

This was the conclusion of
the first series of reflection. This was the knowledge of herself,
on the first question of inquiry, which she reached; and without
being long in reaching it. She was most sorrowfully indignant;
ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed to her—her
affection for Mr. Knightley. Every other part of her mind was
disgusting.

With insufferable vanity
had she believed herself in the secret of every body’s feelings;
with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every body’s
destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and she
had not quite done nothing—for she had done mischief. She had
brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on
Mr. Knightley. Were this most unequal of all connexions to take
place, on her must rest all the reproach of having given it a
beginning; for his attachment, she must believe to be produced only
by a consciousness of Harriet’s; and even were this not the case,
he would never have known Harriet at all but for her
folly.

Mr. Knightley and Harriet
Smith! It was a union to distance every wonder of the kind. The
attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax became commonplace,
threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no surprize,
presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or thought.
Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith! Such an elevation on her side!
Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it
must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the
sneers, the merriment it would prompt at his expense; the
mortification and disdain of his brother, the thousand
inconveniences to himself. Could it be? No; it was impossible. And
yet it was far, very far, from impossible. Was it a new
circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities to be captivated by
very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps too busy to seek,
to be the prize of a girl who would seek him? Was it new for any
thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent, incongruous—or for
chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct the human
fate?

Oh! had she never brought
Harriet forward! Had she left her where she ought, and where he had
told her she ought! Had she not, with a folly which no tongue could
express, prevented her marrying the unexceptionable young man who
would have made her happy and respectable in the line of life to
which she ought to belong—all would have been safe; none of this
dreadful sequel would have been.

How Harriet could ever have had the
presumption to raise her thoughts to Mr. Knightley! How she could
dare to fancy herself the chosen of such a man till actually
assured of it! But Harriet was less humble, had fewer scruples than
formerly. Her inferiority, whether of mind or situation, seemed
little felt. She had seemed more sensible of Mr. Elton’s being to
stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr. Knightley’s.
Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at pains to give
Harriet notions of self-consequence but herself? Who but herself
had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible, and
that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment? If
Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing
too.

* * * *

Chapter XII

T
ill now that she
was threatened with
its loss, Emma had never known how much of her happiness depended
on being first with Mr. Knightley, first in interest and affection.
Satisfied that it was so, and feeling it her due, she had enjoyed
it without reflection; and only in the dread of being supplanted,
found how inexpressibly important it had been. Long, very long, she
felt she had been first; for, having no female connexions of his
own, there had been only Isabella whose claims could be compared
with hers, and she had always known exactly how far he loved and
esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for many
years past. She had not deserved it; she had often been negligent
or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him,
insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he
would not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her
own—but still, from family attachment and habit, and thorough
excellence of mind, he had loved her, and watched over her from a
girl, with an endeavour to improve her, and an anxiety for her
doing right, which no other creature had at all shared. In spite of
all her faults, she knew she was dear to him; might she not say,
very dear? When the suggestions of hope, however, which must follow
here, presented themselves, she could not presume to indulge them.
Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy of being peculiarly,
exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley. She could not.
She could not flatter herself with any idea of blindness in his
attachment to her. She had received a very recent proof of its
impartiality. How shocked had he been by her behaviour to Miss
Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her
on the subject! Not too strongly for the offence—but far, far too
strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and
clear-sighted goodwill. She had no hope, nothing to deserve the
name of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself
which was now in question; but there was a hope (at times a slight
one, at times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived
herself, and be overrating his regard for her. Wish it she must,
for his sake—be the consequence nothing to herself, but his
remaining single all his life. Could she be secure of that, indeed,
of his never marrying at all, she believed she should be perfectly
satisfied. Let him but continue the same Mr. Knightley to her and
her father, the same Mr. Knightley to all the world; let Donwell
and Hartfield lose none of their precious intercourse of friendship
and confidence, and her peace would be fully secured. Marriage, in
fact, would not do for her. It would be incompatible with what she
owed to her father, and with what she felt for him. Nothing should
separate her from her father. She would not marry, even if she were
asked by Mr. Knightley.