Chapter Chapter 39 · 第39章

This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable

pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which

she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.—She was extremely

glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the

Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much

alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was

peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few

minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the

occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward

to another happy result—the cure of Harriet’s infatuation.—From

Harriet’s manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted

the ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were

suddenly opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the

superior creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma

could harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by

injurious courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for

supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther

requisite.—Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and

Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer

must be before her!

She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that

he could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he

was to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it.

Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them

all to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened

up for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their

grandpapa, when the great iron sweep-gate opened, and two persons

entered whom she had never less expected to see together—Frank

Churchill, with Harriet leaning on his arm—actually Harriet!—A moment

sufficed to convince her that something extraordinary had happened.

Harriet looked white and frightened, and he was trying to cheer

her.—The iron gates and the front-door were not twenty yards

asunder;—they were all three soon in the hall, and Harriet immediately

sinking into a chair fainted away.

A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered,

and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the

suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted

with the whole.

Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs.

Goddard’s, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and

taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough

for safety, had led them into alarm.—About half a mile beyond Highbury,

making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became

for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies had

advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small

distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a

party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg; and

Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and

calling on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight

hedge at the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to

Highbury. But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much

from cramp after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank

brought on such a return of it as made her absolutely powerless—and in

this state, and exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.

How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more

courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could

not be resisted; and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen

children, headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and

impertinent in look, though not absolutely in word.—More and more

frightened, she immediately promised them money, and taking out her

purse, gave them a shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to

use her ill.—She was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was

moving away—but her terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was

followed, or rather surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.

In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and

conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his

leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance

at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced

him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road,

a mile or two beyond Highbury—and happening to have borrowed a pair of

scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to

restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a

few minutes: he was therefore later than he had intended; and being on

foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The

terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then

their own portion. He had left them completely frightened; and Harriet

eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength

enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome. It

was his idea to bring her to Hartfield: he had thought of no other

place.

This was the amount of the whole story,—of his communication and of

Harriet’s as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.—He dared

not stay longer than to see her well; these several delays left him not

another minute to lose; and Emma engaging to give assurance of her

safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people

in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the

grateful blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself.

Such an adventure as this,—a fine young man and a lovely young woman

thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain

ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at

least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician

have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and

heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been

at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?—How much

more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and

foresight!—especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her

mind had already made.

It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever

occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory; no

rencontre, no alarm of the kind;—and now it had happened to the very

person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing

to pass by to rescue her!—It certainly was very extraordinary!—And

knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this

period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his

attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr.

Elton. It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most

interesting consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence

should not be strongly recommending each to the other.

In the few minutes’ conversation which she had yet had with him, while

Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror, her

naïveté, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a

sensibility amused and delighted; and just at last, after Harriet’s own

account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the

abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing

was to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted.

She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of

interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive

scheme. It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account

proceed.

Emma’s first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of

what had passed,—aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion: but

she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour

it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those

who talk most, the young and the low; and all the youth and servants in

the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last

night’s ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as

he sat, and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without

their promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some

comfort to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse

(for his neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well

as Miss Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day; and he had

the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very

indifferent—which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well,

and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had

an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man, for

she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent

illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message.

The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took

themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have

walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history

dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her

nephews:—in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and

John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the

gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the

slightest particular from the original recital.