‘One knocked the other over, I’ll be bound!’
A deep voice caused her to put her hand to her heart.
‘I startled you, my apologies, Mrs Knightley; I had thought you saw me coming.’
‘Mr Martin! I am not a deer to be so easily startled. But I was mourning for these two lost soldiers.’
‘Soldiers, you say, ma’am. Fighting at each other then. Look, how one has pushed the other flat and now lies on top of him.’
‘I thought it for comfort in dying,’ Emma smiled and found that the sight and sound of this hearty man had quite dissipated her gothic mood. I have come from your Abbey-Mill.’
‘And saw Mrs Martin?’ A soft look came into the manly face which, for some reason she did not care to identify, made her uncomfortable.
‘Yes – and Mrs Martin and the two Miss Martins. You have a veritable household of good women there.’
‘I have; and know it. I am a fortunate man. But I must not keep you talking. Your boots are wet through already.’
‘I wished to see the worst the storm had done.’ Emma replied, thinking she should have a reason for her visit.
‘For the same purpose I am here. I understand Mr Knightley will be back tonight.’
‘You do. Ah!’ Emma could hardly hide her surprise for she did not know such a thing.
‘Let me hand you back to your carriage.’
But Emma’s enjoyment in Mr Martin’s company had gone with the news that he was kept better informed about Mr Knightley’s whereabouts than that gentleman’s wife. She did not allow for the fact that she had been out all morning and a message might have come in her absence. Her open, friendly tone changed for a haughty sharpness. ‘No! I shall continue up to the house now I have got so far. My feet cannot be wetter than they already are and I am quite warm.’
‘Then let me accompany you – show you the quickest, cleanest way.’
‘You may direct me; but I will go alone; the best service you can render me is to cheer poor James and see that he meets me at the house.’
Alone, Emma went as quickly as the waterlogged and slippery ground allowed; she was conscious that it was only wilfulness that had led her on to this extra walk. Nevertheless, it was pleasant to see the many wings of the house – in comfortably antique but not always homogeneous styles – come into view. Knightley loved this place; he would be pleased by her curiosity, Emma reassured herself. Now she felt herself foolish in not allowing Mr Martin to accompany her for he, doubtless, held a key and could have let her inside. She must merely stare, admire, imagine. She would walk round the main part of the house, note every feature and then return to wait for the carriage that must follow the long way round by road.
Emma was carrying out her own prescription, eyes noting each window, each door, the angle of the roof, the stone steps that led up to a longer window, when her attention was attracted by something moving behind the glass. She came closer. It was a man’s figure; but such was the play of the light that she could see no more than that. She came closer still. Whatever Emma’s faults, lack of courage was not one of them; besides, she assumed it must be the caretaker who lived, as she knew, in a cottage adjoining. But he was old, grey, short, and this was a tall figure, even though shadowy.
‘Oh, Miss Woodhouse! Miss Woodhouse!’ Who was that calling the name she had not heard for so long and in tones of such anguish? Emma pressed closer to the glass and saw – but how could it be? – Frank Churchill’s face, handsome still but oh so pale and distraught.
‘Miss Woodhouse – I beg you – I plead with you – for the sake of your friendship with my dear wife, Jane – Ah, Jane…’ he broke down and moved further inward so Emma could scarcely perceive him, although she thought she heard sobs – wild unfettered sobs such as she expected to hear from no man.
‘Mr Churchill,’ her own voice faint, for the surprise was great and her position, pressed flat against the window for a better view, most strange and difficult. ‘Mr Churchill’ – a little firmer.
And now he flitted back, tears streaming from his eyes; an arm beckoned her. ‘If you please – follow—’
She followed; she outside the house, he inside, until they both came face to face in a little side door, half covered by ivy but the top fitted with a single pane of glass; she had no further time to wonder for the door was open in a second and Frank, a frenzied hand claw-like clutching at her, had drawn her in.
‘Oh, even to see you – her friend!’ he began at once, standing so close that Emma could see his reddened eye and unshaven cheek. ‘My Jane – oh there will never be such a one again – her beauty, her virtue, everything that was good and sweet and noble – but you know all this – Oh, Miss Woodhouse—’ Here his face came closer still and she smelled the alcohol on his breath.
‘Mrs Knightley. I am Mrs Knightley.’ Why did she insist on this so firmly? What would a name matter to a person in such extreme depths of despair as this man? Nevertheless, she felt it must be said and the saying made her stronger. ‘Why are you here, Mr Churchill? In Mr Knightley’s house? How have you come through this door? Mr Knightley is in London looking for you.’
‘Knightley. Knightley,’ repeated Frank, as if the name meant nothing to him, indeed, Emma reflected – for her shock was fading and she was beginning to find the use of her mind again – it probably did not. Frank’s nature had always been of the sort that lived only in the moment and forgot what had gone before. And yet this wildness, this wreckage, that she saw in front of her, was pitiful and no one could ever doubt that he had dearly loved poor Jane Fairfax.
‘You cannot understand – no one who has not lost – Ah the agony – the misery … ’ Here he broke off to weep again.
‘You must not give way to these feelings, Mr Churchill, you have a child—’
‘A child!’ – interrupting her in a mad cry. ‘A murderer! – My Jane’ – an eager, frenzied pulling at her sleeve. ‘You remember the whiteness of her skin – we talked of it – I said it too colourless – you praised it – Ah, now she has the pallor of death … ’ Here he fell back and seemed to swoon against the wall.
Emma became further alarmed. She must run to James and together they would get him to the carriage and take him – but where? Not to Hartfield; she could not do that to Mr Woodhouse. To his own father at Randalls? That would be the right place. But how could she take him there when poor Mrs Weston was indisposed and so near her time? If only Mr Knightley were back!
But he was not. Perhaps – to the Martins! This was the most practical way forward – Mr Robert Martin, a strong man – and yet Emma hesitated. And, while she was silent, deliberating, Mr Churchill, as if divining her thoughts – or maybe he had heard the carriage crunching the gravel under its wheels as it arrived in front of the house – suddenly lifted his head and fixed Emma with his crazed eyes—
‘I must be gone – do not come after me—’
‘But, Mr Churchill – you are not well! You must be looked after!’
‘No! No! Jane – I feel closer to you here—’
‘But this is Mr Knightley’s house—’
‘At night I can go out to Highbury, to her room – see the pianoforte I bought her – where she played. I watch, I stand, I see her again – Ah! Oh!’ – how his sobs were groans – ‘you cannot know the reason for my despair! Would that I were dead – dead! Ah, such a word – dead – I would join her who I only caused to suffer, although I loved her. Oh, how I loved! Her last words – Frank, why, why? I can hear them still – shall hear them for ever—’
‘Please, Mr Churchill, you must calm yourself and come with me. It is not all over – there is the child—’
‘No! No! I can hear no more!’ And he was gone, back into the dark recesses of the great old house. In a moment, the silence was total, as if the ranting figure had been an hallucination. But just as Emma was about to turn and re-enter the garden,
he was there again, hissing in a horrible wheedling tone, ‘Do not tell a soul of my whereabouts for the river runs deep and fast around the house and if the fox is chased from his lair he must take to the water—’ and then he had gone again.
Far too agitated to consider that a fox takes to the water because its excellent ability as a swimmer makes it a sure way to evade capture, Emma pictured, with horror, Mr Churchill’s drowned body carried along the swollen river; it was too awful to contemplate. She stepped out hastily into the still sunlit garden and, feeling the fresh air on her burning face, let out her breath with a gasp near a sob. What could she do? The first move was ordained: she must go and find the carriage; that much she could do, though her legs shook ever so much. But what then?
If Emma was considering driving to the Abbey-Mill and seeking out Mr Robert Martin, one look at James’s grave face reminded her that poor Mr Woodhouse, by this late hour in the morning, would have consigned the carriage to a ditch and herself to the grave; she could not delay her return for the sake of Frank Churchill.
Mr Woodhouse was so out of sorts when the carriage turned into the drive at Hatfield that he had had his chair turned round from its accustomed place at the fire so that he might face the window.
‘My dear Emma,’ he cried querulously, as she – face still pale and legs a-tremble from her terrible experience – entered the room. ‘My dear, you see I have had to move my chair. I sit now between such draughts that I cannot bear to think how they will make me suffer in the future. The least I can expect is a cold and you know how colds lie on my chest. I should not be surprised if I were not in my bed by the evening.’
‘Oh, papa!’ Emma crouched by him, glad that her tremulous state could be put down to anxiety over his health. ‘Let me bring you a rug directly. It is only that I walked too far!’
This was a mistake.
‘Walked too far!’ an exclamation of horror. ‘You took the carriage. I made sure that James was with you and James is the most practical of men. I told myself once if not a thousand times, ‘‘James is a practical man; if she is with James, she will not take harm.” James has had the carriage over without anyone taking harm – you remember the occasion? Foul weather, foul weather— ?’
‘Dear papa. Indeed James was with me. You were right to feel confident of my safety.’
‘Walking? You say, walking?’
‘The day is so fine,’ began Emma, blushing despite all her efforts, ‘I called in on the Martins—’
‘The Martins? You walked with the Martins?’
‘Yes, that is—’ She had walked to the garden gate with Mrs Harriet Martin; she had seen the fallen limes in the company of Mr Robert Martin.
‘Yes, papa’ – more firmly.
‘Well – you should have told me that at first; now I am quite at ease. Mr Knightley, I know, places as much confidence in Mr Robert Martin as I do in James. I do believe I could make use of a rug, just round my knees – if you would ring?’ Mr Woodhouse, fears for his daughter at rest, was able to concentrate fully on his own health, an occupation which took up both his and Miss Woodhouse’s attention for upward of an hour.
As soon as she could – under the pretext of seeing Cook to order especial cold-fighting delicacies – Emma escaped to her bedroom; there she lay across her bed and burst into tears. The relief was great, the comfort of giving in to her emotions so restorative that she rose not ten minutes later with fresh optimism: she was not Frank Churchill’s keeper nor could she ever be; his talk of the river was bravado, a kind of play-acting of which she knew him to be master – nearer the stories she read under such titles as ‘The Castle of Count Rudolpho’ or ‘The Midnight Bell.’ Even Emma’s buoyant youthfulness could not admit that Mr Churchill did not suffer – his gaunt face, the flaming eyes, stayed before her – but she managed to convince herself that his was not the kind of nature to do himself damage. His emotions were violent but not deep; he would rush to the river-bank, stand at the edge, stare at the rushing water, imagine himself, pale face upturned, strewn with weed, carried along by the current like a branch broken off a tree – but he would not cast himself in; the imagining would be enough for him.
So Emma convinced herself and, washing her face in cool water, descended again with far greater composure than most ladies might have shown in such a situation.
‘There is a letter from London – from Mr Knightley,’ Mr Woodhouse greeted her.
It was a reward for her calmness; Emma opened the letter eagerly and was immediately disappointed by its brevity.
‘My dearest Emma – I will be here one more night but expect me on the morrow by dinner time – In haste, your ever loving—’ and then there was a squiggle as if he had added something else, before ‘Knightley’ in his handsome, bold letters.
‘He is coming?’ Mr Woodhouse, anxiously.
‘On the morrow.’
‘And poor Isabella – the children – Mr John Knightley? They are in good health?’
‘He does not refer to them.’
‘Not refer to them! How not? Is it a concealment? Do you detect something amiss?’
‘No, papa,’ replied Emma as patiently as possible; but a long evening lay ahead and then another day. Her courage began to wane a little and, as if to mock her earlier calm, the unsolved problem of what to do with Jane’s pianoforte, made more difficult now with Churchill’s interest added, came into her mind. Clearly, it was her duty to report his presence. Oh, Mr Knightley, why have you not come?
Chapter 8
The night passed – as all nights, however dreary, do – and Emma rose to find another bright day beyond the casement, although the wind had risen again. After breakfast, she retired to her upstairs parlour and sat over her sewing which had been sadly neglected during the last few days – a neglect to which the square of cambric was so accustomed that it had gradually transformed from a brilliant white to a shade of grey, as if to acknowledge its lack of importance and desirous of drawing less attention to itself. Emma, sober-faced but inexorably pretty, drew the thread through and, as often as it came, frowned and sighed; there was clearly much on her mind.
Outside the window, the arrival of a carriage in the driveway sent the gravel into a flurry. Emma knew Knightley was on horseback and was not of the changeable nature to alter his time of returning, but she ran eagerly all the same and peered through the glass. A lady descended from the carriage and entered the house, a glimpse of feathers and frills, of velveteen and veiling, was enough.
‘Mrs Elton is downstairs, ma’am.’ Mary’s knock at the door was confirmation of her gloomy fate.
The weather has kept us apart, dear Mrs Knightley, I do declare it!’ Mrs Elton’s declaration was made with all the enthusiasm of a loving friend.
‘Mrs Elton! It has been too long indeed – but the weather must not be blamed. The weather is too ordinary a reason; too vulgar – using the word in its common meaning. We must find sickness, travel, friends, perhaps a small disaster—’
‘A disaster?’ repeated Mrs Elton, a little bewildered and unwilling to relinquish her role of warm goodwill. ‘Dear Mrs Knightley, how I have missed your ready wit! I was saying so to Mr Elton this evening gone and by such a coincidence that confirms one’s belief in the Almighty God, this very morning what should come but a letter from Mrs Selina Suckling.’
‘A coincidence, Mrs Elton! I confess I do not follow you. But pray, be seated. Some refreshment perhaps?’
‘Yes. You are too kind.’ The settling of Mrs Elton with all her tails behind and her swathing in between and her rigging on top, took some time; but the coincidence was not forgot.
‘Mrs Selina Suckling, my dearest sister,’ she began as soon as a drink was in her hand, ‘has writ that she is coming to visit my little house – my little doll’s house, as I call it to her that lives in such a castle of a place. Maple Grove has twenty bedrooms, you know, and all of them
freshly wallpapered within the year.’
‘I am very glad that Mrs Suckling takes so much pleasure in wallpaper, though not, I suppose, as glad as those whose business it is to supply her with the paper – but I still cannot make out the coincidence.’
‘My dear Mrs Knightley. We shall of course entertain Mr and Mrs Suckling to several dinners during their stay with us and that, in short, is why I must come at once to Mrs Knightley to ascertain when she and Mr Knightley and Mr Woodhouse are free of engagements. Hartfield must come first, I said to the cara sposa over breakfast – he was just out to visit poor Mrs Bates, but I will come to that later. Mrs Knightley is in Highbury; I shall take the carriage at once, I said. Now, you see the coincidence – one evening I talk of not having the pleasure of seeing Mrs Knightley and the next morning I have urgent reason to pay her a visit.’
‘A coincidence indeed,’ agreed Emma, who saw she was supposed to feel complimented by this rigmarole when all she wished to do was avoid contact with the Vicarage as far as possible. This she achieved much of the time but it would be certain that a dinner with the great Sucklings could not be refused without causing offence. She did not, however, entirely lose hope since the Sucklings had been much promised over the last year and not yet found time in their busy schedule – ‘so near to all the inducements of Bath,’ as Mrs Elton described it – to put in an appearance.
‘I hope Mr and Mrs Suckling will not arrive too soon,’ said Emma ‘for Mr Knightley is away.’
‘Away?’ – a voice of astonishment.
‘Business has called him to London.’
Emma & Knightley Page 5