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Chapter 10
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 inquire
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 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 bye, 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 anywhere 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 farther 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
cellery, 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 acknowledged 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
ribband 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 chuse 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 dropt, 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.
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