The four other gentlemen, meanwhile, had repaired to the burnt-out fireplace where they stood discussing the likelihood of the chimney being injured from the inside. Emma could hardly believe her ears when she heard Churchill’s ringing voice inquire of Knightley, ‘And do you have any idea of how the fire was started?’
‘We have our suspicions,’ replied Knightley, as polite as ever, although his expression indicated to Emma a tension whose cause she did not dare examine.
‘I collect you suspect a deliberate act by an intruder,’ pursued Mr Weston.
‘We do.’ Knightley’s tone was clipped, as if to discourage further conjecture.
For Churchill to instigate such a discussion – doing so, moreover, in the presence of someone to whom he had admitted his guilt – so disconcerted Emma that she turned to Mrs Elton who stood at her side and said quite forcibly, ‘I suppose a few flames, a little water must be conceived as less of a tragedy than if the ceiling had fallen in!’
Mrs Elton could not but take this as a reference to the unfortunate collapse of a part of the Suckling home, the much-vaunted Maple Grove. She wished to riposte – it was an insult, she divined, and should have a riposte – but her mind refused to produce suitable words. Eventually, while Emma stared – her thoughts of course on the fireplace – Mrs Elton cried shrilly, ‘A fire is a tragedy, a falling down is an Act of God!’
Her vigorous tone attracted the attention of the men at the fireplace who broke apart and came back to the centre of the room. In the general movement that followed Emma found herself drawn aside by Frank Churchill who immediately whispered, ‘You are shocked, I can see it in your face. But how else should I behave? A reformed man must show an interest in a friend’s troubles.’
‘You are shameless!’ hissed Emma, and had moved to leave him when, catching the most unwelcome sight of Harriet Martin in high-spirited conversation with Mr Knightley, she faced Frank again. ‘You need not look happy!’
‘You wish me to wear sackcloth and ashes and go about with a long face? But I was always taught that saints were cheerful people!’
‘However you may change, Frank Churchill, you will never be a saint!’ This time she did leave his side for the party was gathering together for the purposes of a walk round the grounds.
‘Oh, how Mrs Suckling will regret her continual delay,’ cried Mrs Elton, ‘when I tell her what a splendid tour she has missed!’
‘We may all regret her delay,’ said Emma, picturing her golden satin which she expected to have delivered on the following day. Never vain of her looks – which in itself might be taken for pride since she took for granted a natural superiority – this dress and how she would look in it had been taken much more seriously than any garment before. She was determined to shine at the Sucklings’ Ball!
‘You refer to the ball!’ said Mrs Elton, with great satisfaction. ‘I do not worry about the delay since Mrs Cole pronounced in Mr Elton’s hearing that an evening such as she planned might tax the great Creator himself; and Mr Elton, in his most ringing voice, gave it the “Amen!”’
‘You talk of the ball.’ Mrs Tidmarsh joined them, ‘I should have been most disappointed if it had been put off. I have brought with me a costume I wore in theatricals when I played that great heroine of Britannia, Boadicea. Unfortunately Mr Tidmarsh, who cannot like any show, forbade me the helmet, but I can still promise you a dashing and unusual effect – I have made substitute for the helmet with feathers!’
Mrs Elton was saved from the need for an appropriate comment – although her raised brow and pursed lip suggested that she might not altogether share Mrs Tidmarsh’s enthusiasm for her costume – by the party moving out to the garden.
Chapter 32
It is a feature of walks taken in company that two may walk happily side by side where three or more will never find their situation even tolerably comfortable. Three do not fit easily on to paths; the wind and sky disperses the voice into the sky so that those on either side of him or her in the middle must lean across to hear each other; the differences in their stride irritate; progress is interrupted by a continual falling back and facing forward, all in order to overcome the unalterable fact that they are not a partnership of two!
For this reason, a large group, intent on serious ambulatory exercise – rather than standing around in walking mode – will always form up into pairs. Out of such a coupling – sometimes conjoined by a conscious will, sometimes only by the chance of who stood next to each at the time of departure – an interesting result may emerge. There is nothing so conducive to intimate conversation than a lively step and a face at your side rather than staring directly at you, as so often at table or in a drawing-room. The body enjoys a sense of freedom which it imparts to the head and the tongue; words are passed while skipping round a stone, holding back a branch, or scrambling down the steps to a ha-ha which would never be spoken in the sedate confines of the front parlour.
If anyone had ever made a study of the whereabouts of those young people (or even not so young) when they first come to an understanding, or, at least, an attraction, later leading to marriage, a brisk walk on a fine spring day would outdo every other location.
The company setting out from Donwell on just such a fine day, was immediately decreased in size by Harriet saying she must return to her baby directly and, Louisa Martin volunteering to accompany her, they set off by the quickest path. Already pairs were forming – Dugobair had Miss Martin firmly on his arm and, not apparently aware of the compass, had wandered off towards the unused and unromantic stable before being recalled by Mr Knightley.
Mrs Elton, with a determination that would have been admirable in a captain at the masthead, a limpet on a rock, or a ferret in a hole, had attached herself to her host, deserving her place, as she must have felt, by her stream of laudatory cries – ‘What a tragedy!’ had been replaced by, ‘What perfection!’
Hampered as he was by this ever-praising encumbrance, Mr Knightley managed to lead off his party on the most scenic route to his favourite avenue of limes. Behind him came Emma on Mr Weston’s arm, with Mr Martin taking only a few paces in attendance and then falling out with the excuse – which Emma accepted as perfectly right and proper – that a man like him (rich or not) should not have time to spend walking in a gentleman’s garden which he already knew as well as the back of his hand. Besides, she was comfortable with Mr Weston; there would be no surprises from him, no hissed words of passion – only good nature and, if that sometimes passed the bounds of good sense, then she was used to allow for it.
‘Come up, Frank!’ he was calling over his shoulder now. Who had picked whom (if that was how it happened) was not known by Emma but it must be instantly clear to anyone with eyes or ears was that Mr Churchill and Mrs Tidmarsh, bringing up the rear, had immediately struck up a most cordial understanding. Her voice could be heard declaiming a line or two of poetry and his – somewhat to Emma’s surprise, since she had never thought of Frank as educated in literature – completing the verse. There was much laughter and, whenever she turned her head, a view of Mrs Tidmarsh’s most expansive hand gestures.
‘They do not mean to catch up with us,’ Mr Weston acknowledged the obvious, with some disappointment. ‘I suppose Mrs Tidmarsh has travelled abroad a good deal. It is that, no doubt, that gives them so immediate a sympathy.’
Emma might have argued with him since she had her suspicions that Mr Churchill had spent far less time abroad than he pretended but, at that moment, words, sounding very like French, wafted forward to them. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘that does sound remarkably like the French language they are speaking.’
Mr Weston sighed. ‘Frank has always had an excellent ear – for music or for language. I believe his appreciation of poor Jane was entirely due to the excellence of his ear and the excellence of her playing.’
‘Ah,’ commented Emma for want of real agreement. ‘Have you heard yet from
old Mr Churchill now that Frank has – has returned? He must be most relieved he is safe.’
‘Indeed. Just so. Although the poor old gentleman’s health has suffered greatly since his wife died—’
‘—And his nephew disappeared,’ Emma could not prevent herself from interposing.
‘That too.’ Mr Weston looked a little discomposed before returning to his more satisfactory train of thought. ‘I have visited him once since he set up in Richmond and could hardly credit he is but half a dozen years older than myself; yet I have a child younger than Frank’s, younger than my own grandson, indeed. I do wonder whether it is not poor Mr Churchill’s age, or age in appearance, and decrepitude which makes him a little hard on dear Frank—’
‘A little hard?’
‘He has not altogether forgiven Frank for leaving the baby.’
‘But surely his distress, his agony of mind, after a dear wife’s decease, were reason enough—?’
‘Mr Churchill does not seem to place as much emphasis on Frank’s agony of mind as we do—’
The last words of this sentence, delivered with a discernible air of disquiet, were almost drowned by a bellow of hearty male laughter as Frank and Philomena caught up by a pace or two.
‘As we do,’ repeated Emma by way of encouragement for she could see that Mr Weston had something more to add.
‘We do. Indeed we do. But Mr Churchill, poor old man, perhaps entering an early dotage, he suggested that Frank’s behaviour during his marriage did not follow the path of perfect – perfect rectitude.’
‘Mr Churchill means, I suppose,’ said Emma, torn uncomfortably between an urge to hear the worst of Frank and a strange, unaccountable urge to defend him, ‘that Frank would not be in Yorkshire as much as was convenient for him, for them. But surely a young man can be allowed to spend time in London; and his wife should, instead of complaining or languishing, follow him!’
‘Just so. That is exactly my thought. I said as much to Mr Churchill. To blame Frank for Jane’s lack of health, is like blaming the cook for a bad oyster. I said that to Mr Churchill too but he was not receptive, not receptive at all. I fear he could not quite take in my likening poor Jane to an oyster, although I thought it rather apt – her being so secret, so lacking in candour – although, now I come back to it, the saying is about a clam, is it not? Sol was not altogether straight.’ At this witticism it was his turn to give a hearty bellow of male laughter which reminded Emma with sudden force that Mr Weston and Frank were natural father and son and must share some traits in common.
‘Did Mr Churchill say more?’
‘Ah, you are thinking me a heartless sort of man to make a joke about poor Jane Fairfax. You are right. Let us change the subject; it is too lovely a day for dreariness and woe, for an old man half out of his wits. He suggested, would you believe it, that Frank had taken up with another woman in London and if that doesn’t prove the old gentleman is off his head then I’m living on St Helena!’
This remark, delivered with another guffaw, carried Mr Weston forward at suddenly increased speed – and left Emma standing, stricken, horrified. The words fitted in too closely with what she recalled of Frank’s self-accusations muttered and screamed by the river. She could not remember what he had said with any exactitude except that he laid some of the blame for Jane’s dying to his own account. It was too dreadful to contemplate! Almost unbelievable! That someone so in love that he had married a young lady without portion and with the pitiful Bates’s as closest relatives, should lose those feelings so quickly. Yet she must also remember Mrs Campbell’s hints – and think, too, that he had just risked a venerable old house for the whim of burning up a pianoforte that brought him sad memories. What sort of man was this!
‘Who is this stopping and standing like Patience on a Monument!’
Although Emma had begun walking again, she had been too slow to catch the speeding Mr Weston who had been snatched up by Mrs Elton while Mr Knightley dropped back a pace, and now she was overtaken by Frank who had just spoken, on one side, and Mrs Tidmarsh on the other.
‘My dear,’ cried the latter. ‘You told me Mr Churchill was handsome and rich but you never told me he was amusing! It is so seldom one finds amusing men; it is because they get no practice – unlike ladies, whose principal education is how to entertain members of the opposite sex. Men, I believe, are quite happy to be strong and silent and even go in fear of being thought “lightweight” if they make a witticism. Am I not right, Mr Churchill, are you not in danger of being called lightweight?’
‘I am too rich for anyone to dare call me lightweight!’ exclaimed Frank.
‘There you are! Perfect! How many men would risk such a statement! He is a perfect – I do believe he may even be a woman in disguise!’
It was impossible for Frank to let that pass and Emma found herself caught between an ever-rising level of sallies which fired across her so that she felt like a schooner caught between two gunships. It was a relief when she saw Mr Knightley turn and, on seeing her situation, come back to her and take her on his arm. Letting the laughing duo go ahead, they fell back. The peacefulness was very soothing to Emma’s troubled spirit.
‘It is good to walk here, with you on my arm,’ Mr Knightley spoke after a pause. Emma glanced at his face, he was not thinking of Frank or Mr Weston or Philomena or any other trying or disagreeable person. His head was high, his eyes looking ahead, around, lighting on trees, just opening to flower, on a bird trilling above their heads, on the sky streaking now with silver, on the lime tree avenue in front of him.
‘Oh, I wish we lived here!’ cried Emma, feeling it with all her heart. It seemed to her, all of a sudden, that her cloudiness of spirit, all that came between her and Knightley, would be dispelled if they could live together in the ambience of Donwell – his home, his family’s home for generations.
‘My dear,’ his face was even brighter. ‘Do you truly feel that? You have never said so before – I hoped—’
‘I do. I do’ – she was fervent. ‘We could be free here – be ourselves here!’
His face closed a little as if he distrusted such wild words. ‘I am myself wherever I am with you,’ he said eventually, calmly.
‘Oh, yes!’ – a bitter tone entered Emma’s voice; for his calmness was inimical to her enthusiasm. ‘You are always yourself!’
‘Emma!’ – an appeal.
‘No. No. We are not quarrelling!’ But why were tears pricking at her eyes? Was she some silly girl dreaming of a hero to sweep her off her feet? It was too ridiculous, emotion arising out of the horrible things that she had been forced to think about Frank. She and Knightley were not part of that kind of ugliness; they were kind and loving to each other.
‘Knightley,’ she laid her hand on his arm.
‘I wish you would call me George.’
‘But—’ His voice had been husky, strange.
‘But you will not,’ a smile was forced, ‘as you told me that day in the garden when I told you of my love, that you never would.’ He had seen Mr Weston and Mrs Elton stopping and turning; they had reached the avenue, the object of their walk. Miss Martin and Mr Tidmarsh already stood under the small bright leaves, looking upwards like star-gazers. Mrs Tidmarsh and Frank, still jocular, stood in the middle of the avenue. They must all convene.
‘I shall call you George when we move in to Donwell!’ cried Emma, inspired by she knew not what.
Knightley had just time to give her a look filled with emotion, entreaty, longing – all the qualities that she had decided not to expect from him – when they were engulfed in a wave of esprit de corps.
It is a second rule of a walk taken in company, that those who participate feel a particular sense of camaraderie. The feeling is as strong as the walk is long, so as much feeling cannot be engendered in the distance from the Abbey to the lime tree avenue as would be aroused in a party who cross fr
om Land’s End to John O’Groat’s or follow the path that led Hannibal across the Alps; but the atmosphere, nevertheless, in that spring-time green, with bodies warmed by the exercise and the sun and faces and minds cooled by the freshness of the air, tended towards a collective sense of self-congratulation, of a disinclination to disperse their separate ways.
This is a contradictory sort of behaviour since each has passed their time, as described, earlier making sure that they walked in pairs, but now, at the end, they suddenly deem it absolutely necessary to talk to everybody else. So Dugobair, having submitted to Mrs Elton taking over Elizabeth Martin (which she did with many insinuations as to the reason for the heightened beauty of her looks), advanced on Emma and Mr Knightley.
‘You brought me here last week,’ he addressed the latter, ‘but I did not perceive its charms as clearly as I do today.’
‘I believe there is a particular reason,’ Knightley smiled. And Emma had the pleasure of seeing that a grown gentleman may blush as well as a young lady.
But now Mr Churchill and Mrs Tidmarsh returned to them, with Mr Weston not far behind. ‘Mrs Weston will be sending out the Bow Street Runners!’ he cried. ‘I must make haste – I have Mrs Elton with me but there is room for another—’
Involuntarily, Emma looked at Frank; this should be him – she wanted him gone; she willed him to go. But Mrs Tidmarsh interjected, ‘Oh, we cannot let him go so soon can we, my dear Mrs Knightley? There is room enough for four in our carriage, is there not?’
Emma could not deny it, although the thought of sitting so close to a man of whom she had learnt to think so badly, of whom she was still trying to teach herself to believe the worst, was in the extreme distasteful. Whether Frank read her expression she could not tell, but he now cried, ‘But surely we planned to gather at Abbey-Mill Farm! Did not Mrs Martin suggest it? I am sure she did!’ Seeing Elizabeth and Mrs Elton approaching, he applied to her, ‘Are we not expected by your sister to call?’
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