Emma and the Werewolves (30 page)

The pain of his continued
residence in Highbury, however, must certainly be lessened by his
marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be prevented—many
awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A Mrs. Elton would be an excuse for
any change of intercourse; former intimacy might sink without
remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility
again.

Of the lady, individually,
Emma thought very little. She was good enough for Mr. Elton, no
doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury—handsome enough—to look
plain, probably, by Harriet’s side. As to connexion, there Emma was
perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted claims
and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article, truth
seemed attainable. What she was, must be uncertain; but who she
was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did
not appear that she was at all Harriet’s superior. She brought no
name, no blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the
two daughters of a Bristol—merchant, of course, he must be called;
but, as the whole of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so
very moderate, it was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line
of trade had been very moderate also. Part of every winter she had
been used to spend in Bath; but Bristol was her home, the very
heart of Bristol; for though the father and mother had died some
years ago, an uncle remained in the law line—nothing more
distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than that he was in the
law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma guessed him to
be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise. And all the
grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder sister, who
was very well married, to a gentleman in a great way, near Bristol,
who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the history; that
was the glory of Miss Hawkins.

Could she but have given
Harriet her feelings about it all! She had talked her into love;
but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out of it. The charm
of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet’s mind was not
to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he certainly
would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin would
have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure her.
Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always
in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this
reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him
somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times
every day Harriet was sure just to meet with him, or just to miss
him, just to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, just to have
something occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring
warmth of surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually
hearing about him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always
among those who saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so
interesting as the discussion of his concerns; and every report,
therefore, every guess—all that had already occurred, all that
might occur in the arrangement of his affairs, comprehending
income, servants, and furniture, was continually in agitation
around her. Her regard was receiving strength by invariable praise
of him, and her regrets kept alive, and feelings irritated by
ceaseless repetitions of Miss Hawkins’s happiness, and continual
observation of, how much he seemed attached! his air as he walked
by the house—the very sitting of his hat, being all in proof of how
much he was in love!

Had it been allowable
entertainment, had there been no pain to her friend, or reproach to
herself, in the waverings of Harriet’s mind, Emma would have been
amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton predominated,
sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful as a check
to the other. Mr. Elton’s engagement had been the cure of the
agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the
knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by
Elizabeth Martin’s calling at Mrs. Goddard’s a few days afterwards.
Harriet had not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left
for her, written in the very style to touch; a small mixture of
reproach, with a great deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself
appeared, she had been much occupied by it, continually pondering
over what could be done in return, and wishing to do more than she
dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in person, had driven away all
such cares. While he staid, the Martins were forgotten; and on the
very morning of his setting off for Bath again, Emma, to dissipate
some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best for her to
return Elizabeth Martin’s visit.

How that visit was to be
acknowledged—what would be necessary—and what might be safest, had
been a point of some doubtful consideration. Absolute neglect of
the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would be ingratitude.
It must not be: and yet the danger of a renewal of the
acquaintance!

After much thinking, she could determine on
nothing better, than Harriet’s returning the visit; but in a way
that, if they had understanding, should convince them that it was
to be only a formal acquaintance. She meant to take her in the
carriage, leave her at the Abbey Mill, while she drove a little
farther, and call for her again so soon, as to allow no time for
insidious applications or dangerous recurrences to the past, and
give the most decided proof of what degree of intimacy was chosen
for the future.

She could think of nothing
better: and though there was something in it which her own heart
could not approve—something of ingratitude, merely glossed over—it
must be done, or what would become of Harriet?

* * * *

Chapter V

S
mall heart had Harriet
for visiting.
Only half an hour before her friend called for her at Mrs.
Goddard’s, her evil stars had led her to the very spot where, at
that moment, a trunk, directed to The Rev. Philip Elton,
White-Hart, Bath, was to be seen under the operation of being
lifted into the butcher’s cart, which was to convey it to where the
coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk
and the direction, was consequently a blank.

She went, however; and when they reached the
farm, and she was to be put down, at the end of the broad, neat
gravel walk, which led between espalier apple-trees to the front
door, the sight of every thing which had given her so much pleasure
the autumn before, was beginning to revive a little local
agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her to be looking
around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined her not
to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour. She
went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who
was married, and settled in Donwell.

The quarter of an hour
brought her punctually to the white gate again; and Miss Smith
receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and unattended
by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the gravel
walk—a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with her
seemingly with ceremonious civility.

Harriet could not very soon
give an intelligible account. She was feeling too much; but at last
Emma collected from her enough to understand the sort of meeting,
and the sort of pain it was creating. She had seen only Mrs. Martin
and the two girls. They had received her doubtingly, if not coolly;
and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had been talked almost
all the time till just at last, when Mrs. Martin’s saying, all of a
sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had brought on a
more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very room
she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There
were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the
window. He had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the
hour, the party, the occasion—to feel the same consciousness, the
same regrets—to be ready to return to the same good understanding;
and they were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma
must suspect, as ready as the best of them to be cordial and
happy,) when the carriage reappeared, and all was over. The style
of the visit, and the shortness of it, were then felt to be
decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom she had
thankfully passed six weeks not six months ago! Emma could not but
picture it all, and feel how justly they might resent, how
naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She would
have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had the
Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a
little higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she
have done otherwise? Impossible! She could not repent. They must be
separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process so
much to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a
little consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls
to procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the
Martins. The refreshment of Randalls was absolutely
necessary.

It was a good scheme; but on driving to the
door they heard that neither “master nor mistress was at home;”
they had both been out some time; the man believed they were gone
to Hartfield.

“
This is too bad,” cried
Emma, as they turned away. “And now we shall just miss them; too
provoking! I do not know when I have been so disappointed.” And she
leaned back in the corner, to indulge her murmurs, or to reason
them away; probably a little of both—such being the commonest
process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage stopped;
she looked up; it was stopped by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were
standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight
of them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound—for Mr.
Weston immediately accosted her with,

“
How d’ye do? how d’ye do?
We have been sitting with your father—glad to see him so well.
After the terrible things that happened at Hartfield during the
recent storm, I was surprized to find him up and about at all. I do
not mean to imply that he is weak or a coward, I just thought with
his temperament that he would still be shaken by it. I must
confess, I was stunned by his choice to not hire new guards to look
over the two of you.”

Emma’s expression made it
very clear she wished this line of conversation dropped, and so he
relented to her wishes, changing the subject. “Frank comes
to-morrow—I had a letter this morning—we see him to-morrow by
dinner-time to a certainty—he is at Oxford to-day, and he comes for
a whole fortnight; I knew it would be so. If he had come at
Christmas he could not have staid three days; I was always glad he
did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have just the right
weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall enjoy him
completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could
wish.”

There was no resisting such news, no
possibility of avoiding the influence of such a happy face as Mr.
Weston’s, confirmed as it all was by the words and the countenance
of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not less to the purpose. To
know that she thought his coming certain was enough to make Emma
consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in their joy. It was
a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits. The worn-out
past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in the
rapidity of half a moment’s thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now
be talked of no more.

Mr. Weston gave her the history of the
engagements at Enscombe, which allowed his son to answer for having
an entire fortnight at his command, as well as the route and the
method of his journey; and she listened, and smiled, and
congratulated.

“
I shall soon bring him
over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.

Emma could imagine she saw
a touch of the arm at this speech, from his wife.

“
We had better move on, Mr.
Weston,” said she, “we are detaining the girls.”

“
Well, well, I am ready;”
and turning again to Emma, “but you must not be expecting such a
very fine young man; you have only had my account you know; I dare
say he is really nothing extraordinary:” though his own sparkling
eyes at the moment were speaking a very different
conviction.

Emma could look perfectly unconscious and
innocent, and answer in a manner that appropriated nothing.

“
Think of me to-morrow, my
dear Emma, about four o’clock,” was Mrs. Weston’s parting
injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only for
her.

“
Four o’clock! depend upon
it he will be here by three,” was Mr. Weston’s quick amendment; and
so ended a most satisfactory meeting. Emma’s spirits were mounted
quite up to happiness; every thing wore a different air; James and
his horses seemed not half so sluggish as before. When she looked
at the hedges, she thought the elder at least must soon be coming
out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw something like a
look of spring, a tender smile even there.

“
Will Mr. Frank Churchill
pass through Bath as well as Oxford?” was a question, however,
which did not augur much.

But neither geography nor tranquility could
come all at once, and Emma was now in a humour to resolve that they
should both come in time.

The morning of the interesting day arrived,
and Mrs. Weston’s faithful pupil did not forget either at ten, or
eleven, or twelve o’clock, that she was to think of her at
four.

“
My dear, dear anxious
friend,” said she, in mental soliloquy, while walking downstairs
from her own room, “always overcareful for every body’s comfort but
your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets, going again and
again into his room, to be sure that all is right.” The clock
struck twelve as she passed through the hall. “’Tis twelve; I shall
not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this time
to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the
possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring
him soon.”