Bab Bab 17 · 第17章

Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The

weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr.

Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay

behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party set

off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor

Isabella;—which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated

on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently

busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.

The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr.

Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with

Mr. Elton’s best compliments, “that he was proposing to leave Highbury

the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with the

pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few

weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from

various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal

leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever

retain a grateful sense—and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be

happy to attend to them.”

Emma was most agreeably surprized.—Mr. Elton’s absence just at this

time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving

it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it

was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than

in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded.

She had not even a share in his opening compliments.—Her name was not

mentioned;—and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an

ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his graceful acknowledgments,

as she thought, at first, could not escape her father’s suspicion.

It did, however.—Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so

sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely

to the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was

a very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought

and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse

talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away

with all her usual promptitude.

She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason

to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable

that she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of

her other complaint before the gentleman’s return. She went to Mrs.

Goddard’s accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary

penance of communication; and a severe one it was.—She had to destroy

all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding—to appear in

the ungracious character of the one preferred—and acknowledge herself

grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all

her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last

six weeks.

The confession completely renewed her first shame—and the sight of

Harriet’s tears made her think that she should never be in charity with

herself again.

Harriet bore the intelligence very well—blaming nobody—and in every

thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion

of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to

her friend.

Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost;

and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on

Harriet’s side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having

any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton

would have been too great a distinction.—She never could have deserved

him—and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would

have thought it possible.

Her tears fell abundantly—but her grief was so truly artless, that no

dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma’s eyes—and she

listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and

understanding—really for the time convinced that Harriet was the

superior creature of the two—and that to resemble her would be more for

her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence

could do.

It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and

ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of

being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of

her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father’s claims,

was to promote Harriet’s comfort, and endeavour to prove her own

affection in some better method than by match-making. She got her to

Hartfield, and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to

occupy and amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton

from her thoughts.

Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and she

could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in

general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr.

Elton in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet’s

age, and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might

be made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton’s return,

as to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of

acquaintance, without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing

them.

Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence

of any body equal to him in person or goodness—and did, in truth, prove

herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet it

appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an

inclination of that sort _unrequited_, that she could not comprehend

its continuing very long in equal force.

If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and

indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not

imagine Harriet’s persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the

recollection of him.

Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for

each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of

effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each

other, and make the best of it.

Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs.

Goddard’s; Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great

girls in the school; and it must be at Hartfield only that she could

have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or

repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be

found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of

cure, there could be no true peace for herself.