Emma, Jane Austen [best romance novels of all time .TXT] 📗

“You had better go on,” said she.

He did so, but very soon stopped again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A boyish scheme, indeed!⁠—I cannot comprehend a man’s wishing to give a woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument’s coming if she could.”

After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill’s confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for more than a word in passing.

“I perfectly agree with you, sir,”⁠—was then his remark. “You did behave very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax’s sense of right, he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad.⁠—He had induced her to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from suffering unnecessarily.⁠—She must have had much more to contend with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she should have been in such a state of punishment.”

Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read, however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and, excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear of giving pain⁠—no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.

“There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the Eltons,” was his next observation.⁠—“His feelings are natural.⁠—What! actually resolve to break with him entirely!⁠—She felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each⁠—she dissolved it.⁠—What a view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!⁠—Well, he must be a most extraordinary⁠—”

“Nay, nay, read on.⁠—You will find how very much he suffers.”

“I hope he does,” replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. “ ‘Smallridge!’⁠—What does this mean? What is all this?”

“She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge’s children⁠—a dear friend of Mrs. Elton’s⁠—a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the by, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?”

“Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read⁠—not even of Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter the man writes!”

“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him.”

“Well, there is feeling here.⁠—He does seem to have suffered in finding her ill.⁠—Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of her. ‘Dearer, much dearer than ever.’ I hope he may long continue to feel all the value of such a reconciliation.⁠—He is a very liberal thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.⁠—‘Happier than I deserve.’ Come, he knows himself there. ‘Miss Woodhouse calls me the child of good fortune.’⁠—Those were Miss Woodhouse’s words, were they?⁠—And a fine ending⁠—and there is the letter. The child of good fortune! That was your name for him, was it?”

“You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I hope it does him some service with you.”

“Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk to you of something else. I have another person’s interest at present so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill. Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work on one subject.”

The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the happiness of her father. Emma’s answer was ready at the first word. “While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible for her. She could never quit him.” Part only of this answer, however, was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr. Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself long; and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation would be a risk of her father’s comfort, perhaps even of his life, which must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!⁠—No, he felt that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any respect objectionable; it was, that he should be received at Hartfield; that so long as her father’s happiness⁠—in other words, his life⁠—required Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.

Of their all removing