บทที่ บทที่ 16 · 第16章

The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think

and be miserable.—It was a wretched business indeed!—Such an overthrow

of every thing she had been wishing for!—Such a development of every

thing most unwelcome!—Such a blow for Harriet!—that was the worst of

all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or

other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and she

would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken—more in

error—more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the

effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.

“If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have borne

any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me—but poor

Harriet!”

How she could have been so deceived!—He protested that he had never

thought seriously of Harriet—never! She looked back as well as she

could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she

supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must

have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so

misled.

The picture!—How eager he had been about the picture!—and the

charade!—and an hundred other circumstances;—how clearly they had

seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready

wit”—but then the “soft eyes”—in fact it suited neither; it was a

jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such

thick-headed nonsense?

Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to

herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere

error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others

that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the

gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but,

till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean

any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet’s friend.

To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the

subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying

that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley

had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, the

conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry

indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his

character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It was

dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many

respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him;

proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little

concerned about the feelings of others.

Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton’s wanting to pay his

addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his

proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment,

and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the

arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she

was perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need

be cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language

or manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she

could hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice,

less allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him.

He only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse

of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so

easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody

else with twenty, or with ten.

But—that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware

of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry

him!—should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!—look down

upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below

him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no

presumption in addressing her!—It was most provoking.

Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her

inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of

such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that

in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must know

that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at

Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family—and that the

Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was

inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate,

to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from

other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell

Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses

had long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood

which Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as

he could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend

him to notice but his situation and his civility.—But he had fancied

her in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and

after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners

and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop and

admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and

obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real

motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and

delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite.

If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to

wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken

hers.

The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was

wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It

was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what ought

to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite

concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.

“Here have I,” said she, “actually talked poor Harriet into being very

much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for

me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had

not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I

used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her

not to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done

of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and

chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the

opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have

attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.

I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel

this disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any

body else who would be at all desirable for her;—William Coxe—Oh! no, I

could not endure William Coxe—a pert young lawyer.”

She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a

more serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might

be, and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to

Harriet, and all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the

awkwardness of future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or

discontinuing the acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing

resentment, and avoiding eclat, were enough to occupy her in most

unmirthful reflections some time longer, and she went to bed at last

with nothing settled but the conviction of her having blundered most

dreadfully.

To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary

gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of

spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,

and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough

to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of

softened pain and brighter hope.

Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone

to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to

depend on getting tolerably out of it.

It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in love

with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to

disappoint him—that Harriet’s nature should not be of that superior

sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive—and that there

could be no necessity for any body’s knowing what had passed except the

three principals, and especially for her father’s being given a

moment’s uneasiness about it.

These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of

snow on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome

that might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.

The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she

could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his

daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting

or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered

with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and

thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every

morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to

freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No

intercourse with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on

Sunday any more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for

Mr. Elton’s absenting himself.

It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home; and

though she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some

society or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well

satisfied with his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir

out; and to hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep

entirely from them,—

“Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?”

These days of confinement would have been, but for her private

perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited

her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to his

companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his

ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during

the rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and

obliging, and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes

of cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still

such an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet,

as made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease.