Emma & Knightley

by Rachel Billington

  ‘Will you take a glass of wine?’ inquired Mr Weston who had moved from apples to baby Frank without one word of encouragement nor missing one—

  ‘No!’ cried Emma with such a chilling look that Mr Weston shrank and eyed the bottle of wine in his hand as if he had picked up poison by mistake. For the reason above all why Mr Knightley loved Harriet – so Emma knew without the possibility of doubt as her eyes were drawn irresistibly to her one-time friend’s creamy bosom, scarcely disguised by an expensive piece of lace – was because she was a mother! A pretty, nay beautiful, good, obedient, loving, sweet-natured, hard-working mother! Overcome with agitation, Emma fell back in her chair.

  ‘You are not well—’ Mr Weston bent over her anxiously. ‘The heat – the proximity – so many—’

  ‘I am very well!’ Emma sat up straight with an imperious look of disdain meant for the lady across the table but received by Mr Knightley whose attention had been caught by his wife’s falling backwards and then her sudden return to the upright. The disdain surprised him and, noticing Robert Martin, about to try his turn at conversation, he assumed, to his disappointment (but little real surprise), it was meant for that gentleman. Nevertheless he smiled at Emma, admiring, at least, her air of animation which added so much more to her beauty than the languor that had come over her too often recently.

  He smiles at me, thought Emma, but he loves another! However, even in her excitable, imagining state, this did not seem quite true to her – too much like a Gothic novel, she decided. It struck her that, although she had hit on this love, on Knightley’s part it was still unconscious. He did not know his own feelings; this would explain why such an honourable man could let such love form in his breast: he did not recognise it; he still thought he looked on, and admired, Harriet as the wife of his tenant, his ex-tenant, his friend – that, in all honesty, must be the word – and not as someone to inspire deeper emotions. In this lack of self-knowledge lay hope, Emma, mind racing, told herself, because what is unacknowledged may pass and leave no trace while the acknowledged can never be altogether eradicated; it must always leave a memory. Therefore her first, instinctive wish for confrontation, questions, reproach, must not be indulged. She must make believe she saw nothing, understood nothing; in that way Mr Knightley’s emotions might return to her unchanged.

  There remained only one further matter; but this was almost too painful to consider: the sense she had, on observing Knightley’s attentions to Harriet, that he saw her as a woman, whereas he treated her, Emma, despite being eighteen months married, as the child he had always known. She had not been able to arouse a passionate side of his nature – Ah, it was too much!

  ‘May I?’ Mr Weston was offering Emma his arm as the assembly rose to leave the room; dinner was ended – a dinner that for everyone, with the exception of Emma, had passed with a high degree of enjoyment.

  Emma’s most crushing blow – that Harriet, silly little Harriet – could arouse a manly ardour in Mr Knightley where she could not – contradicted the view put forward by Mr Frank Churchill, and at least partly believed by Emma till now, that she had married a man whose nature was sensible rather than passionate. A friend would have advised her that an accurate view of Mr Knightley’s character might have been better formed by close application to the subject rather than allowing a man demented with sadness and guilt to plant seeds of doubt and a dinner-time imagining to override years of closeness. But jealousy is a fierce, unreasoning master and as Emma entered the parlour, head held high, she had never felt more convinced by anything in her life, that Mr Knightley harboured the very strongest feelings for Harriet Martin.

  But the rest of the evening must be got through; they would not be kept late, Mrs Weston promised – old friends need not impress their hosts by staying beyond their usual hour – but they must have a little music, a hand or two of cards. So first Emma must sit down at the pianoforte and play with good humour and then listen to Miss Elizabeth Martin.

  This she did with curiosity, for as Mr Knightley’s accompanist, Miss Martin must arouse new interest, and she noticed, with uncharitable pleasure, that although Miss Martin, a pretty dark-eyed girl, played with great musicality and a nice touch, her technique showed a decided lack of elegance.

  ‘Mr Martin confides in me that they are to have a music teacher come from London to his sister once a week,’ said Knightley, seating himself at his wife’s side. ‘Mrs Goddard could not provide anyone to raise her to the level she deserves.’

  Emma nodded at the justness of the case; it was the lack of a good teacher that explained her lack of elegance. She smiled a little. The sound of her husband’s voice, his close presence at her side had an immediately soothing effect; her horrible fears could not be totally dispelled – she must believe still in his feeling for Harriet – but he was also hers – she could feel it in his attentiveness, in the tender expression on his face, in his every word, his breath – Yet, as Elizabeth Martin drew to a close, she could not resist a sidelong question, ‘You do not sing tonight?’

  ‘Sing?!’

  ‘You are surprised. But I hear in Abbey-Mill Farm, you sing, whenever requested, “The Yellow-haired Laddie”.’

  Mr Knightley’s brow cleared; he laughed. ‘I learnt it as a child – it was my mother’s favourite and old Mrs Martin’s too – they persuade me into it now and again – I would never do it in public. But Mrs Martin is such a good creature and swears that that song does her more good than any tonic.’

  ‘Your mother’s favourite! I never knew—’

  ‘You were not born,’ he smiled.

  ‘You never told me.’

  ‘It is a silly song. Emma, my dear – what is the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Always nothing,’ Mr Knightley sighed to himself.

  ‘I am sorry.’ They sat for a moment without speaking. The piano was closed, the tables set up for cards. Mr John Knightley and Isabella were talking together and came over to where Emma and Knightley sat so silent amid the gaiety.

  ‘We would like to take the carriage early,’ said John Knightley.

  ‘Ah, brother,’ Mr Knightley roused himself to a smile, ‘you revert to old habits of early departure!’

  ‘I am of the same mind,’ said Isabella.

  ‘Mrs Weston understands, we have all the trials of our removal ahead of us on the morrow.’

  Emma smiled at her sister. ‘Let us all go together.’

  But that could not be; the Westons would be offended and the horses could hardly pull such a carriage-load for there were still Henry and John to be taken back, although the other children and maids were long gone.

  So another hour must be passed. Yet it did not pass as sadly as Emma expected for Mrs Cole made much of her and Mrs Weston told her she had never seen her look finer, although a little too thin – but that must be still the effects of London – and everybody seemed to be laid out to be charming and to make her feel important and loved; and, more consoling than all this, Mr Knightley never left her side for a moment and, when they sat together in the darkness of the carriage, he took her hand gently.

  ‘My dear – I have been too busy – that separation in London – Isabella’s family at Hartfield – may I suggest, when the weather has warmed, we make a trip to the sea, for a week, perhaps even two.’

  The sea! The dark waves with their white curling tips, the shiny pebbles thrown this way and that, the wild seagulls in a streaky sky! ‘Oh, yes. I should love that above all things!’

  Chapter 28

  Hartfield settled down quickly after the John Knightleys’ departure. Mr Knightley was out of the house most days, Mr Woodhouse and Miss Bates were as comfortable in each other’s company as ever – like a pair of twins who mirror each other in every outlook and attitude – and Emma, once her housekeeping was done, spent the rest of her day in avoiding the piano and her sewing, in the usual round of visits �
� to people with whom she felt little in common – in charitable work of which she did more than usual until Vicarage Lane grew quite accustomed to her brisk step and her businesslike dispensing of comfort – and in a new activity: reading to improve her mind.

  The first time Mr Knightley found Emma engrossed in Dr Johnson he commented with his usual shrewdness, ‘So Mrs Tidmarsh has prevailed where Miss Taylor failed.’ But he was not ill-humoured and looked over the list that Philomena Tidmarsh had compiled, after taking advice from Dugobair, with real interest. ‘I had the estate to manage from such a young age – I left any serious reading to John. You must teach me, Emma.’

  ‘Do not make fun of me!’ she was indignant; but Knightley protested he did not, and was regretful that his responsibilities had cut short his education. This threw a new light on him for Emma who had always felt his inferior in every way, except in lively wit, not that she produced much of that at the present time. ‘Perhaps we could read aloud together?’ she suggested, a little doubtfully and, although that had not yet taken place, it was a happy prospect which, with the plan to visit the sea as soon as the weather warmed – perhaps in late May – gave Emma a tolerable sense of hope that she and Knightley might, after all, deal well enough. Perfect happiness she no longer dared expect but a closeness, a linking of their two spirits, was altogether necessary to her.

  She wrote to Mrs Tidmarsh, in somewhat disguised tones, about this need she sensed in the human make-up (she did not mention herself) to complete oneself by joining to another. Mrs Tidmarsh replied in terms that showed she perfectly understood her friend referred to herself by advising her to read Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. ‘However, my dearest Emma,’ she continued, ‘I no longer have a copy and, since I can fairly assume that such a volume will be neither available among the books at Hartfield, nor in the larger area of Highbury nor, quite possibly, in the whole county of Surrey, it may be best that you take comfort in the fact that you, at least, have joined your life to a man whose attitude to women is as humane and rational as any attitude could be when held by a person of the other sex.’

  Emma had smiled to herself; it pleased her when Philomena spoke approvingly of Mr Knightley – even though the next sentence might end with nearly as complimentary a reference to Mr Martin. She did not wish Mrs Tidmarsh to be a source of contention between Mr Knightley and herself.

  ‘My dear!’ she wrote, ‘You would not credit it, but Mr Knightley and I are to study Doctor Johnson together. We will have quite a schoolroom here soon. Even Miss Bates let go her beloved Times newspaper – to which she is addicted with a passion – to look through Dryden’s Dunciad.’

  But this letter was not answered for nearly a week – a long week to Emma – and when a letter came it was from the Reverend Dugobair Tidmarsh.

  My stepmother has asked that I should write – she has been ill – the old trouble – for a week now – she improves but slowly and I am more anxious than I have ever been. She does not know that I write this – she merely wished me to make a few vague excuses for the want of a letter. But I feel it my duty to ask you now, that which you had so kindly offered before you left London – in short, that she could come and stay with you in a week’s time – perhaps two – and, in the good health of the countryside, in your company, out of the noise and dirt of London, away from her duties and obligations, regain her health. As Virgil writes, “Fortunatus est ille deos qui novit agrestis” – Fortunate is the man who has come to know the gods of the countryside.’

  There was no possibility of refusing such a request, Emma knew it at once. She could not make such a friend of Philomena that she discussed with her the most private thoughts of her heart, and yet confine her to the pages of a letter. She must come; she would ask Knightley at once – although, indeed, she expected no great objection from him – he did not know of Mrs Tïdmarsh’s foundling background and perhaps would not care if he did. Mr Woodhouse might worry – a stranger in the house was something that had never occurred at Hartfield; but Emma had learnt that an early application to Miss Bates resulted in a gradual introduction of any subject he might have found discomposing, over chess (Miss Bates still had not vanquished him, although it was assuredly within her grasp) or cards, so that the change, or whatever it might be, came to him when it was already part of his thinking. Emma would tell Miss Bates that there would be two visitors in a fortnight’s time – for Mr Tidmarsh mentioned his hopes to accompany his stepmother and he might stay a night or two – and by the time they arrived Mr Woodhouse would be as comfortable with the idea as if it were Isabella or John Knightley returned, but without their noisy children!

  So Emma decided and so it turned out. The date was fixed, Mr Knightley was amenable, Mr Woodhouse only properly expectant and Emma, reviewing the room that Mrs Tidmarsh would inhabit, decided just a few days before her visitors would arrive, on a special visit to Ford’s so that she might replace the muslin at the window and enliven the armchair with a piece of new chintz.

  The day was dry, her spirits so gay that they could not even be dampened by finding Mrs Elton, with Mrs Cole at her side, engaged in doing just what she was about to do – turning over materials with the object of brightening up the furnishings of a spare bedroom.

  ‘Mrs Knightley!’ Both ladies looked on Emma with the greatest show of delight but Mrs Elton spoke first. ‘You have found me before I found you because I have a letter for you in my reticule. You will never guess why we are in Ford’s!’

  ‘To look over new chintzes, I should say,’ replied Emma, ‘if I may judge by the rolls of cloth in front of you.’

  ‘But why do we look?’ She was arch, her eyes winking with excitement. ‘You will not guess, perhaps, unless I give you a clue?’

  ‘Yes, give Mrs Knightley a clue,’ echoed Mrs Cole, apparently in equal excitement.

  Mrs Elton tipped her head on one side in thinking mode; she put a mittened finger to her chin. ‘It is for a bedchamber,’ she eventually said with great deliberation, as from one whose words portend falling stars or moons with horns, ‘which is not – usually – used.’

  ‘Ah,’ Emma was grave, as if bemused, although she knew only one happening (or potential happening) that turned Mrs Elton into quite such a lamentable being – ‘A bedchamber? Unused, you say? Perhaps it suffers from mice?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ – Mrs Elton, shocked.

  ‘Or draughts!’

  ‘Certainly not!’ – Mrs Elton, aghast.

  ‘But you must expect visitors—?’

  Mrs Elton clapped her hands and Mrs Cole jumped up and down – or would have done if she had not been so solidly based.

  ‘I have it!’ Emma paused, stared triumphant into the two eager faces – ‘Mr Elton is entertaining the bishop!’

  ‘The bishop?!’ Both ladies spoke the word as if it were ‘Napoleon’. And it was true that the bishop of the area was a red-faced man who rode his horse about like a doctor and enjoyed his snuff and his port more than anything in this world and – as he had once confided in Emma when she had the misfortune to spend a dinner at his side – in the next world too.

  ‘Not the bishop,’ said Emma.

  ‘Give her another clue, Augusta, dear,’ said Mrs Cole. ‘Perhaps,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘a pig could come into it, a baby pig.’

  But Mrs Elton had had enough of the game, and handed over a paper to Emma with a certain dignity. ‘It is the Sucklings. They come in three or four days’ time. Since we are so cramped for space at the Vicarage, Mrs Cole is to give a dinner – a ball indeed. Here is the invitation.’

  ‘Ah!’ cried Emma, relenting, for she was happy that day. ‘I am so glad. But will you be able to accommodate two more guests for I have visitors arriving from London not long before?’

  This coincidence, working on Mrs Elton’s competitive sense, restored all her liveliness and, once she had ascertained they were a youn
g widow and an even younger man who was, moreover, a London clergyman, she was all smiles. Mr and Mrs Suckling (in her view) would be in no way replaced as the starring guests but Mrs Tidmarsh and her stepson would make very acceptable additional guests.

  Mrs Cole began to count numbers on her fingers, Mrs Elton had the chintz she had chosen parcelled up and soon the bell at the door rang as the two cheerful ladies left the shop, and Emma could make her modest preparations for seeing her guests comfortable in peaceful solitude.

  Nevertheless, on her return to Hartfield, she could not resist a note to Mrs Tidmarsh on the subject of the proposed ball.

  My dear – I have committed you to gaiety which, I now realise, you may not have the strength or inclination to attend: the Sucklings – of whom I have written to you – seem truly to be expected at the Vicarage and a ball given by the Coles (you remember I wrote of them too) – you are invited but do not be anxious; bring a feather or two for your coiffure but, if you are not well enough, we will make you happy staying quiet at Hartfield –

  By return of post came Mrs Tidmarsh’s answer:

  I am as strong as a lion! Three days of country air and I will be able to stand up for every dance – you must not credit all Dugobair’s fears – remember, he lost one mother at an impressionable age – I am packing all my feathers which means my trunk may almost fly on its own – for a harpist is always the very queen of ostriches.

  Undoubtedly this ball was to be the greatest, even on Highbury’s calendar, for several years. The resources of Ford’s being deemed inadequate for such a celebration, materials were brought by every post from London; local seamstresses had never been so busy and fashion plates and pattern-books were exchanged between houses as if they were circulating libraries. Emma, herself not uninfected by the atmosphere, decided on gold satin with a violet velvet trimming, which she judged as far from anything Harriet Martin would choose as possible. Even Miss Bates, who, by some remarkable sleight of hand, had persuaded Mr Woodhouse that it was his duty to attend the ball, and who was normally an unassuming dresser (as indeed was appropriate to her situation) was discovered by Emma returning from Ford’s with a parcel which was revealed, not without maidenly blushes from Miss Bates, to contain strips of plum brocade which Mrs Ford had kept below the counter and which Miss Bates intended to affix to her black silk.