And that will help to soothe you, I thought, in your suffering.
I watched her as we walked through the shrubbery, and I thought how sad she looked. I said nothing, not knowing what to say. I did not want to raise the subject of Frank Churchill in case she did not feel equal to talking about him, but I wanted her to know that she could talk to me if she needed to unburden herself of her cares. And so I said nothing, hoping my silent company would be comforting for her.
She seemed about to speak, then checked. She began again. With a small, sad smile, she said: "You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather surprise you."
"Have I?" I asked, looking at her. "Of what nature?"
"Oh! the best nature in the world - a wedding," she said brightly.
I waited for her to say more, but she could not speak. Her heart was full, and it was made worse by the fact that Frank Churchill was the son of her good friends the Westons.
"If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that already," I said, wanting to spare her the pain of giving me the details.
"How is it possible?" she cried in surprise.
"I had a few lines on parish business from Weston this morning, and at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened."
She appeared relieved, as though she had expected my correspondent to be someone different. But who, and why it should trouble her, I did not know. But what did it matter who my correspondent had been? I had no time to puzzle over it. She was out of spirits, and she needed my friendship.
After a time she said, in a calmer manner: "You probably have been less surprised 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 I seem to have been doomed to blindness."
Her voice fell so much it cut me to the quick. I said nothing, but I took her arm and drew it through mine to comfort her.
"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..." to sink beneath this burden, I wanted to say, but I could not finish my sentence. I found my voice becoming choked and I could not trust myself to speak. When I had recovered, I went on firmly, assuring her of my warmest friendship, and telling her of the indignation I felt on her behalf, because of the behaviour of that abominable scoundrel.
"He will soon be gone," I continued. "They will soon be in Yorkshire."
"You are very kind, but you are mistaken," said Emma. She stopped walking. "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!" I cried, looking eagerly at her, as my hopes began to soar. She was not in love with Frank Churchill! She had not been wounded by him! Then there was hope for me yet!
A moment’s reflection showed me the truth. She was being brave; pretending it did not signify; when it must have hurt her cruelly.
But I was pleased that she could say so much. It showed she had not felt it as deeply as I feared, and in time, with her friends around her to lift her spirits, I was persuaded she would recover.
"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 acknowledgement of more than your reason. He is a disgrace to the name of man."
I was astonished, then, a moment later, when she said: "Mr. Knightley, 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."
I did not know what to think. Was she serious? Or just bearing up under her misfortune? Had she ever been in love with him, or not? I thought of everything I had seen between them. I had never been sure. Her spirits had always been lively, and what I had taken for romantic flirtation might have been nothing but high spirits. I did not know what to think, much less what to say. But I did not need to speak. She went on, telling me that she had been pleased by his attentions because he was the son of Mr. Weston; because he was continually in Highbury; because she found him very pleasant; and, she admitted, in a way no other woman would have admitted it, because her vanity was flattered.
"He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me," she said.
I felt a rush of relief. Emma, my Emma, was not hurt; not wounded, not injured. She was cheerful still.
I felt my own cheerfulness return. In fact, I was so much in charity with the world that I could even find it in my heart to be charitable to Frank Churchill.
"Perhaps he may yet turn out well," I said. "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, as we walked on. "I believe them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached."
Lucky, lucky man to have the love of the woman he loved!
"He is a most fortunate man!" I burst out. "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 has used everybody ill - and they are all delighted to forgive him.
He is a fortunate man indeed!"
Emma said: "You speak as if you envied him."
"And I do envy him, Emma," I said. "In one respect he is the object of my envy."
Because he had won the woman he loved.
She said nothing. I was afraid I had gone too far. If I spoke of my feelings for her, would I lose her friendship? We could never go back to the comfortable ease we had had before. Could I really bear to lose that?
She seemed about to speak, but I had to say something before I lost my courage; before I decided I had too much to lose and could not take the risk.
"You will not ask me what is the point of envy," I said. "You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity. You are wise - but I cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment."
"Oh! then, do not speak it, do not speak it," she eagerly cried. "Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself."
"Thank you," I said, mortified that my attentions were so unwelcome to her. But how could they not be? I was so much older than she, and I had never flattered her as a lover ought. I had scolded her and berated her. I was the last man in the world she would wish to marry. And so, generous girl that she was, she sought to spare me the pain of being refused.
We walked on in silence. We reached the house.
"You are going in, I suppose," I said.
And so it ended. My hope of marrying her.
She hesitated, and then she surprised me by saying: "No. I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not gone."
We walked on. I felt her preparing herself to say something she found difficult.
She is going to tell me she knows of my feelings, and she is going to put paid to them once and for all, I thought.
"Mr. Knightley, I stopped you just now, and I am afraid, gave you pain," she said. "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."