Chapter X

After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Em m a could not think it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and the sublim e of pleasure to Harriet’s share.

CHAPTER X

Though now the m iddle of Decem ber, there had y et been no weather to prevent the y oung ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the m orrow, Em m a had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick fam ily, who lived a little way out of Highbury.

Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, m ain street of the place; and, as m ay 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 m ile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not very good house, alm ost as close to the road as it could be. It had no advantage of situation; but had been very m uch sm artened 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 ey es. – Em m a’s rem ark was –

“There it is. There go y ou and y our riddle-book one of these day s.” –

Harriet’s was –

“Oh, what a sweet house! – How very beautiful! – There are the y ellow curtains that Miss Nash adm ires so m uch.”

“I do not often walk this way now,” said Em m a, as they proceeded,

“but then there will be an inducem ent, and I shall gradually get intim ately 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 extrem e, that, considering exteriors and probabilities, Em m a 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 m essage from m y father.”

She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a m utual silence of som e m inutes, Harriet thus began again –

“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that y ou should not be m arried, or going to be m arried! so charm ing as y ou are!” –

Em m a laughed, and replied,

“My being charm ing, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce m e to

m arry ; I m ust find other people charm ing – one other person at least. And I am not only, not going to be m arried, at present, but have very little intention of ever m arry ing at all.”

“Ah! – so y ou say ; but I cannot believe it.”

“I m ust see som ebody very superior to any one I have seen y et, to be tem pted; Mr. Elton, y ou know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the question: and I do not wish to see any such person. I would rather not be tem pted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to m arry, I m ust expect to repent it.”

“Dear m e! – it is so odd to hear a wom an talk so!” –

“I have none of the usual inducem ents of wom en to m arry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not m y way, or m y 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 m ine. Fortune I do not want; em ploy m ent I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few m arried wom en are half as m uch m istress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and im portant; so alway s first and alway s right in any m an’s ey es as I am in m y father’s.”

“But then, to be an old m aid at last, like Miss Bates!”

“That is as form idable an im age as y ou could present, Harriet; and if I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly – so satisfied – so sm iling – so prosing – so undistinguishing and unfastidious – and so apt to tell every thing relative to every body about m e, I would m arry to-m orrow. But between us, I am convinced there never can be any likeness, except in being unm arried.”

“But still, y ou will be an old m aid! and that’s so dreadful!”

“Never m ind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old m aid; and it is poverty only which m akes celibacy contem ptible to a generous public! A single wom an, with a very narrow incom e, m ust be a ridiculous, disagreeable old m aid! the proper sport of boy s and girls, but a single wom an, of good fortune, is alway s respectable, and m ay be as sensible and pleasant as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so m uch against the candour and com m on sense of the world as appears at first; for a very narrow incom e has a tendency to contract the m ind, and sour the tem per. Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very sm all, and generally very inferior, society, m ay well be illiberal and cross. This does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and too silly to suit m e; but, in general, she is very m uch to the taste of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not contracted her m ind: 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 m e! but what shall y ou do? how shall y ou em ploy y ourself when y ou grow old?”

“If I know m y self, Harriet, m ine is an active, busy m ind, with a great m any independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be m ore in want of em ploy m ent at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Wom an’s usual occupations of hand and m ind will be as open to m e then as they are now; or with no im portant variation. If I draw less, I shall read m ore; if I give up m usic, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for obj ects of interest, obj ects 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 m arry ing, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love so m uch, 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 m y attachm ent to none can equal that of a parent, it suits m y ideas of com fort better than what is warm er and blinder. My nephews and nieces! – I shall often have a niece with m e.”

“Do y ou know Miss Bates’s niece? That is, I know y ou m ust have seen her a hundred tim es – but are y ou acquainted?”

“Oh! y es; we are alway s forced to be acquainted whenever she com es to Highbury. By the by e, that is alm ost enough to put one out of conceit with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people half so m uch about all the Knightley s together, as she does about Jane Fairfax. One is sick of the very nam e of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from her is read forty tim es over; her com plim ents to all friends go round and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a stom acher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandm other, one hears of nothing else for a m onth. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires m e to death.”

They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were superseded. Em m a was very com passionate; 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 way s, could allow for their ignorance and their tem ptations, had no rom antic expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sy m pathy, and alway s gave her assistance with as m uch intelligence as good-will. In the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she cam e to visit; and after rem aining there as long as she could

give com fort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an im pression of the scene as m ade her say to Harriet, as they walked away,

“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they m ake 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 y et, who can say how soon it m ay all vanish from m y m ind?”

“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing else.”

“And really, I do not think the im pression will soon be over,” said Em m a, 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 m ore at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still greater within.

“Oh! dear, no,” said her com panion.

They walked on. The lane m ade a slight bend; and when that bend was passed, Mr. Elton was im m ediately in sight; and so near as to give Em m a tim e only to say farther,

“Ah! Harriet, here com es a very sudden trial of our stability in good thoughts. Well, (sm iling,) I hope it m ay be allowed that if com passion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly im portant.

If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them , the rest is em pty sy m pathy, only distressing to ourselves.”

Harriet could j ust answer, “Oh! dear, y es,” before the gentlem an j oined them . The wants and sufferings of the poor fam ily, however, were the first subj ect on m eeting. 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 accom pany them .

“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Em m a;

“to m eet in a charitable schem e; this will bring a great increase of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the declaration. It m ust, if I were not here. I wish I were any where 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 m ain road. But she had not been there two m inutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of dependence and im itation were bringing her up too, and that, in short, they would both be soon after her. This

would not do; she im m ediately stopped, under pretence of having som e alteration to m ake in the lacing of her half-boot, and stooping down in com plete occupation of the footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would follow in half a m inute. They did as they were desired; and by the tim e she j udged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the com fort 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 m ost natural thing in the world, or would have been the m ost natural, had she been acting j ust then without design; and by this m eans 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 m ore concerned at it, from their being evidently in a conversation which interested them . Mr. Elton was speaking with anim ation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Em m a, having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she m ight draw back a little m ore, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to j oin them .

Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in som e interesting detail; and Em m a experienced som e disappointm ent when she found that he was only giving his fair com panion an account of the y esterday ’s party at his friend Cole’s, and that she was com e in herself for the Stilton cheese, the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the dessert.

“This would soon have led to som ething 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, m ade her again find som ething very m uch am iss about her boot, and fall behind to arrange it once m ore. 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 hom e in tolerable com fort.

“Part of m y lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to contrive. I really am a m ost troublesom e com panion to y ou both, but I hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I m ust beg leave to stop at y our house, and ask y our housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string, or any thing j ust to keep m y 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 m ake 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 im m ediately com m unicated; the door between them was open, and Em m a passed into it with the housekeeper to receive her assistance in the m ost com fortable m anner. She was obliged to leave the door aj ar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton should close it. It was not closed, however, it still rem ained aj ar; but by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to m ake it practicable for him to chuse his own subj ect in the adj oining room . For ten m inutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and m ake her appearance.