Chapter X.
Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to
prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the
morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family who lived
a little way out of Highbury.
Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane
leading at right-angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of the
place; and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr. Elton. A
few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about a quarter of a
mile down the lane, rose the vicarage; an old and not very good house,
almost as close to the road as it could be. It had no advantage of situation:
but had been very much smartened up by the present proprietor; and, such
as it was, there could be no possibility of the two friends passing it without
a slackened pace and observing eyes. Emma’s remark was,—
“There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these days.”
Harriet’s was,—
“Oh, what a sweet house! How very beautiful! There are the yellow
curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”
“I do not often walk this way now,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but
then there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately
acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools, and pollards of this part of
Highbury.”
Harriet, she found, had never in her life been within-side the vicarage; and
her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors and
probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with Mr. Elton’s
seeing ready wit in her.
“I wish we could contrive it,” said she; “but I cannot think of any
tolerable pretence for going in;—no servant that I want to enquire about of
his housekeeper—no message from my father.”
She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some
minutes, Harriet thus began again,
“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or
going to be married—so charming as you are.”
Emma laughed, and replied,—
“My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; I
must find other people charming—one other person at least. And I am not
only not going to be married at present, but have very little intention of ever
marrying at all.”
“Ah, so you say; but I cannot believe it.”
“I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be
tempted: Mr. Elton, you know (recollecting herself), is out of the question;
and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tempted. I
cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I must expect to
repent it.”
“Dear me!—it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”
“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall
in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I never have been in love:
it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without
love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine.
Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not
want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their
husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be
so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any
man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”
“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”
“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if I
thought I should ever be like Miss Bates—so silly, so satisfied, so smiling,
so prosing, so undistinguishing and unfastidious, and so apt to tell every
thing relative to every body about me, I would marry to-morrow. But
between us, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being
unmarried.”
“But still, you will be an old maid—and that’s so dreadful!”
“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty only
which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman
with a very narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! the
proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman of good fortune is always
respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else! And the
distinction is not quite so much against the candour and common sense of
the world as appears at first; for a very narrow income has a tendency to
contract the mind, and sour the temper. Those who can barely live, and who
live perforce in a very small, and generally very inferior, society, may well
be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates: she is
only too good natured and too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very
much to the taste of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty
certainly has not contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a
shilling in the world she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it;
and nobody is afraid of her: that is a great charm.”
“Dear me! but what shall you do? How shall you employ yourself when
you grow old?”
“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great
many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in
want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman’s usual
occupations of eye, and hand, and mind, will be as open to me then as they
are now, or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I
give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest,
objects for the affections, which is, in truth, the great point of inferiority, the
want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not marrying, I shall
be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so much to care
about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to supply every sort
of sensation that declining life can need. There will be enough for every
hope and every fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a
parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder.
My nephews and nieces: I shall often have a niece with me.”
“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece? That is, I know you must have seen
her a hundred times—but are you acquainted?”
“Oh yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to
Highbury. By the by, that is almost enough to put one out of conceit with a
niece. Heaven forbid, at least, that I should ever bore people half so much
about all the Knightleys together as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick
of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty times
over: her compliments to all friends go round and round again; and if she
does but send her aunt the pattern of a stomacher, or knit a pair of garters
for her grandmother, one hears of nothing else for a month. I wish Jane
Fairfax very well; but she tires me to death.”
They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were
superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor
were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her counsel
and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways, could allow
for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic expectations of
extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little,
entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and always gave her
assistance with as much intelligence as good will. In the present instance, it
was sickness and poverty together which she came to visit; and after
remaining there as long as she could give comfort or advice, she quitted the
cottage with such an impression of the scene as made her say to Harriet, as
they walked away,—
“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make
every thing else appear! I feel now as if I could think of nothing but these
poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet who can say how soon it may
all vanish from my mind?”
“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else.”
“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said Emma,
as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended the
narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them into the
lane again. “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once more at all the
outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.
“Oh dear, no,” said her companion.
They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was
passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma
time only to say farther,—
“Ah, Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good
thoughts. Well (smiling), I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has
produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly
important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the
rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”
Harriet could just answer, “Oh dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined
them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the first
subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit he would
now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about what could be done
and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to accompany them.
“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Emma; “to
meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase of love on each
side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It must, if I
were not here. I wish I were any where else.”
Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon
afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one side
of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had not been
there two minutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of dependence and
imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short, they would both be
soon after her. This would not do; she immediately stopped, under pretence
of having some alteration to make in the lacing of her half-boot, and
stooping down in complete occupation of the footpath, begged them to have
the goodness to walk on, and she would follow in half a minute. They did as
they were desired; and by the time she judged it reasonable to have done
with her boot, she had the comfort of further delay in her power, being
overtaken by a child from the cottage, setting out, according to orders, with
her pitcher, to fetch broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child,
and talk to and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or
would have been the most natural, had she been acting just then without
design; and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without
any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however,
involuntarily: the child’s pace was quick, and theirs rather slow; and she
was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in a conversation
which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with animation, Harriet
listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma having sent the child on,
was beginning to think how she might draw back a little more, when they
both looked around, and she was obliged to join them.
Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail; and
Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only
giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday’s party at his friend
Cole’s, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese, the north
Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the dessert.
“This would soon have led to something better, of course,” was her
consoling reflection; “any thing interests between those who love; and any
thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I could but have
kept longer away.”
They now walked on together quietly till within view of the vicarage
pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the house,
made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and fall
behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short, and
dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to entreat them
to stop, and acknowledge her inability to put herself to rights so as to be
able to walk home in tolerable comfort.
“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to
contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I hope
I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop at your
house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of riband or string, or any thing
just to keep my boot on.”
Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could
exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house, and
endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were
taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind it
was another with which it immediately communicated: the door between
them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper, to receive
her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave the
door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton should close
it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but by engaging the
housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make it practicable for
him to choose his own subject in the adjoining room. For ten minutes she
could hear nothing but herself. It could be protracted no longer. She was
then obliged to be finished, and make her appearance.
The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most
favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having
schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point. He
had been most agreeable, most delightful: he had told Harriet that he had
seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little gallantries
and allusions had been dropped, but nothing serious.
“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma: “he advances inch by inch, and
will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.”
Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her
ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been the
occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them
forward to the great event.
