Chapter II.
Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates’s youngest
daughter.
The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax, of the—regiment of infantry, and Miss
Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope and interest; but
nothing now remained of it save the melancholy remembrance of him dying
in action abroad—of his widow sinking under consumption and grief soon
afterwards—and this girl.
By birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on losing
her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation, the
fondling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every probability
of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught only what very
limited means could command, and growing up with no advantages of
connection or improvement to be engrafted on what nature had given her in
a pleasing person, good understanding, and warm-hearted, well-meaning
relations.
But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change to
her destiny. This was Col. Campbell, who had very highly regarded Fairfax,
as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and farther, had been
indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe camp-fever, as he
believed had saved his life. These were claims which he did not learn to
overlook, though some years passed away from the death of poor Fairfax
before his own return to England put any thing in his power. When he did
return, he sought out the child and took notice of her. He was a married man
with only one living child, a girl, about Jane’s age: and Jane became their
guest, paying them long visits and growing a favourite with all; and, before
she was nine years old, his daughter’s great fondness for her, and his own
wish of being a real friend, united to produce an offer from Col. Campbell
of undertaking the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from
that period Jane had belonged to Col. Campbell’s family, and had lived with
them entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time.
The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the very
few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making
independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Col.
Campbell’s power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was
handsome, his fortune was moderate, and must be all his daughter’s; but, by
giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of respectable
subsistence hereafter.
Such was Jane Fairfax’s history. She had fallen into good hands, known
nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent
education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people,
her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline and
culture; and Col. Campbell’s residence being in London, every lighter talent
had been done full justice to, by the attendance of first-rate masters. Her
disposition and abilities were equally worthy of all that friendship could do;
and at eighteen or nineteen she was, as far as such an early age can be
qualified for the care of children, fully competent to the office of instruction
herself; but she was too much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor
mother could promote, and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day
was put off. It was easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane
remained with them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational
pleasures of an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and
amusement, with only the drawback of the future,—the sobering
suggestions of her own good understanding to remind her that all this might
soon be over.
The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss Campbell
in particular, was the more honourable to each party from the circumstance
of Jane’s decided superiority both in beauty and acquirements. That nature
had given it in feature could not be unseen by the young woman, nor could
her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the parents. They continued together
with unabated regard, however, till the marriage of Miss Campbell, who by
that chance, that luck which so often defies anticipation in matrimonial
affairs, giving attraction to what is moderate rather than to what is superior,
engaged the affections of Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable,
almost as soon as they were acquainted; and was eligibly and happily
settled, while Jane Fairfax had yet her bread to earn.
This event had very lately taken place; too lately for any thing to be yet
attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path of duty;
though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had fixed on
for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty should be the
period. With the fortitude of a devoted noviciate, she had resolved at one-
and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from all the pleasures of
life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace and hope, to penance and
mortification for ever.
The good sense of Col. and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such a
resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no exertions
would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever; and for their own
comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would be selfishness:
—what must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they began to feel it
might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the temptation of any
delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments of ease and leisure as
must now be relinquished. Still, however, affection was glad to catch at any
reasonable excuse for not hurrying on the wretched moment. She had never
been quite well since the time of their daughter’s marriage; and till she
should have completely recovered her usual strength, they must forbid her
engaging in duties, which, so far from being compatible with a weakened
frame and varying spirits, seemed, under the most favourable
circumstances, to require something more than human perfection of body
and mind to be discharged with tolerable comfort.
With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her
aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths not
told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to Highbury; to
spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with those kind relations
to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells, whatever might be their
motive or motives, whether single, or double, or treble, gave the
arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they depended more on a
few months spent in her native air, for the recovery of her health, than on
any thing else. Certain it was that she was to come; and that Highbury,
instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which had been so long promised
it—Mr. Frank Churchill—must put up for the present with Jane Fairfax,
who could bring only the freshness of a two years’ absence.
Emma was sorry to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like
through three long months!—to be always doing more than she wished, and
less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult
question to answer: Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw
in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be
thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the
time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience
could not quite acquit her. But “she could never get acquainted with her: she
did not know how it was, but there was such coldness and reserve—such
apparent indifference whether she pleased or not—and then, her aunt was
such an eternal talker!—and she was made such a fuss with by every body!
—and it had been always imagined that they were to be so intimate—
because their ages were the same, every body had supposed they must be so
fond of each other.” These were her reasons; she had no better.
It was a dislike so little just,—every imputed fault was so magnified by
fancy,—that she never saw Jane Fairfax, the first time after any
considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and now,
when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’ interval, she
was particularly struck with the very appearance and manners, which for
those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane Fairfax was very
elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the highest value for
elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost every body would think
tall, and nobody could think very tall; her figure particularly graceful; her
size a most becoming medium, between fat and thin, though a slight
appearance of ill-health seemed to point out the likeliest evil of the two.
Emma could not but feel all this; and then, her face—her features—there
was more beauty in them all together than she had remembered; it was not
regular, but it was very pleasing beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark
eyelashes and eyebrows, had never been denied their praise; but the skin,
which she had been used to cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and
delicacy which really needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of
which elegance was the reigning character, and as such, she must, in
honour, by all her principles, admire it: elegance, which, whether of person
or of mind, she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was
distinction and merit.
In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with twofold
complacency,—the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering justice, and
was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When she took in her
history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty; when she considered
what all this elegance was destined to, what she was going to sink from,
how she was going to live, it seemed impossible to feel any thing but
compassion and respect; especially, if to every well-known particular,
entitling her to interest, were added the highly probable circumstance of an
attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had so naturally started to herself. In
that case, nothing could be more pitiable or more honourable than the
sacrifices she had resolved on. Emma was very willing now to acquit her of
having seduced Mr. Dixon’s affections from his wife, or of any thing
mischievous which her imagination had suggested at first. If it were love, it
might be simple, single, successless love on her side alone. She might have
been unconsciously sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his
conversation with her friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might
now be denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself
effectually from him and his connections by soon beginning her career of
laborious duty.
Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings, as
made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury afforded
no young man worthy of giving her independence, —nobody that she could
wish to scheme about for her.
These were charming feelings, but not lasting. Before she had committed
herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax, or
done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than saying
to Mr. Knightley, “She certainly is handsome; she is better than handsome!”
Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother and aunt, and
every thing was relapsing much into its usual state. Former provocations re-
appeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more tiresome, because anxiety
for her health was now added to admiration of her powers; and they had to
listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter she ate for
breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner as well as to see
exhibitions of new caps and new workbags for her mother and herself; and
Jane’s offences rose again. They had music: Emma was obliged to play; and
the thanks and praise which necessarily followed appeared to her an
affectation of candour, an air of greatness, meaning only to show off in
higher style her own very superior performance. She was, besides, which
was the worst of all, so cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real
opinion. Wrapt up in a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard
nothing. She was disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved.
If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on
the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent
on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon’s character, or her own value for
his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all general
approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished. It did her
no service, however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw its artifice,
and returned to her first surmises. There probably was something more to
conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps, had been very near
changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only to Miss Campbell, for
the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds.
The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill
had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a little
acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma procure as to
what he truly was. “Was he handsome?”—“She believed he was reckoned a
very fine young man.”—“Was he agreeable?”—“He was generally thought
so.”—“Did he appear a sensible young man; a young man of
information?”—“At a watering-place, or in a common London
acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were all
that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than they
had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his manners
pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her.
