All Highbury’s attention was now focused on the weather; not that they had suddenly become especially interested in the growth of the wheat, turnips or spring corn, but that they wished this summer sun and mildness to last through the night of the Sucklings’ Ball.
Mr and Mrs Perry, Dr Hughes and Mrs Hughes, Mr and Mrs Ottway, Miss Ottway, Miss Caroline, Mr George, Mr Arthur, Mr William Cox, Miss Ann Cox – all had been invited, all talked of carriages, shawls and satins. At Abbey-Mill, Randalls and Hartfield, the conversation was much the same, with particular intensity at Hartfield where Mr Woodhouse’s decision as to whether he would attend or not depended entirely on the glass, the moon, and the rising damp. It was understood that those at the Vicarage believed that the weather would stay fair and, in order to bolster confidence in the Coles who, as hosts, bore a heavy responsibility for the comfort of their guests and had therefore ordered a fire in every room – ‘which will send us all to the devil’ as Mrs Elton was reported to have commented – spent all their time with Mr and Mrs Cole. This, at least, was the reason given for no further appearance by Mr Suckling, nor any sighting at all of Mrs Suckling. ‘A man of his size would not wish to stay long in the confin’d space of the Vicarage,’ as Mr Weston explained to anyone who cared to listen. It seemed that the ball must open the Suckling season for which the Crown meeting had been a false start.
Emma looked forward to the ball with a mixture of excitement and dread. The excitement was natural in a young lady who had a new dress to show off and so seldom was given the opportunity to dance in elegant circumstances (she had quite disavowed her previous estimation of the Coles as ‘tradespeople’ and ‘vulgar’). The dread arose out of a sensation, founded on nothing rational, but very strong all the same, that the ball would be a climax for many of her anxieties – about Frank, about Harriet, about Knightley.
‘My dear – you are so lovely – I have never seen you so lovely.’
Mr Knightley stood behind her as she surveyed herself in the long glass. The golden satin dress, with its violet trimmings, caught the bright lights in her hair, turned her skin whiter, made her smooth tight waist smaller. She could not but acknowledge she was beautiful and was glad of it. She leant forward to pick up her string of pearls.
‘I have something for you.’ Knightley opened an engraved box and held it out to her. ‘Our marriage was such a simple affair, so quick; but I would not have you any less impressive than Mrs Suckling,’ he smiled a little.
A necklace of three diamond stars gleamed on a bed of blue velvet. ‘There are single diamonds for your ears. They have not been worn since my mother died twenty-five years ago.’
As Emma did not speak but only looked, in truth, quite bewildered by the jewels, he lifted the necklace out and held it round Emma’s neck. ‘Remember,’ he whispered, ‘you are my wife and I am proud of you.’
Clasping the necklace, he lightly kissed her cheek and left the room.
Emma sat down, heart racing. What had he meant? There had been a portentousness in his words, ‘Remember, you are my wife,’ and choosing this night after more than eighteen months of marriage to give her these diamonds whose existence she had not even suspected! What did it mean? She could not make it out and yet it increased her nervous anticipation.
The gathering in Hartfield’s drawing-room, before the arrival of James with the carriage, had a theatrical air most unusual in that quiet country household. Only Mr Woodhouse, seated in his habitual place for he had decided to enjoy cards with Mrs Goddard rather than suffer the ball, presented an unchanged appearance. Mrs Tidmarsh and her stepson were already there when Emma descended. True to her word, Philomena was dressed as Boadicea in all but the feathers on her head which were dyed purple and were so tall as to nearly reach the ceiling. The purple matched her long velvet tunic which was topped with brass chain-mail. This had already caught the attention of Mr Woodhouse, who was so captivated by his guest (as a slave might have been tied to her chariot) that even this excess of costume was transformed under his admiring gaze. ‘See, Emma dear, Mrs Tidmarsh wears so many necklaces that it almost covers her dress! Is that not a fashion as yet unarrived in Highbury!’
Emma agreed that such generosity of decoration was unknown in Surry and could say no more, for Philomena had seen the stars on her friend’s breast and could not contain her appreciative exclamations. ‘Who would wear more than one necklace if the one was such as that!’
So then Mr Knightley must explain their origin and Mr Woodhouse needed so much reassurance that they were not a new acquisition – although where he found this idea no one could understand – that Miss Bates was able to sidle in quite unnoticed. It was only Mr Tidmarsh’s polite welcome, ‘You are very fine, Miss Bates,’ that made them turn.
‘Who is that come in?’ asked Mr Woodhouse, a little querulous with so much to confuse the calm of his drawing-room.
‘It is Miss Bates, papa,’ Emma bent to her father, ‘dressed up to go to the ball.’
‘Oh dear – I am sure – Oh dear – Mr Woodhouse – Mrs Goddard here—’ began Miss Bates, for her old friend was already present. If she hoped by her usual fluster to distract attention from her costume, it was not to be.
‘Magnificent!’ Mr Knightley bowed gallantly.
‘I do declare, a bird of paradise!’ cried Mrs Tidmarsh and for certain there was a little silver feather on the top of Miss Bates’ turban.
‘Oh dear – may I be of assistance – Mr Woodhouse – so kind – perhaps I should not go – so far – so long—’
Emma could not help smiling a little at this since Miss Bates had shown an extraordinary determination to attend the ball – whether Mr Woodhouse came or not. ‘You cannot waste your brocade panels,’ she advised. ‘There will never be such an opportunity to give them an airing.’
‘So good to me – dear Mrs Knightley – if you are certain – Mr Woodhouse comfortable—’
It was certain that Mr Woodhouse could not be comfortable until he and Mrs Goddard were settled quietly at the card table so the party proceeded to the carriage. Here there was a small delay when it became clear that the ladies’ dresses and, in particular, Mrs Tidmarsh’s head-dress, needed more space than was available.
‘We should have begged for Mr Suckling’s barouche-landau!’ cried Philomena. ‘I would have loved to sit in the open and nod my feathers to Highbury! Come, Miss Bates, admit it, you would have liked to show yourself off to the crowd at the Crown!’
Luckily – as Emma thought – this was not possible and the problem of space was solved by Mr Knightley and Mr Tidmarsh electing to walk the distance. ‘All your prayers have been answered,’ said Mr Knightley, ‘it is the finest evening imaginable. We pedestrians will have the best of the bargain.’
So it was that Emma descended from the carriage with no husband at her elbow, and the three ladies entered the Coles’ house without a gentleman between them.
‘We will wait to be announced,’ said Emma, in decided tones, as they stood in the hallway quite surrounded by bowing servants, which made apparent the formality of the occasion. She needed Mr Knightley and Mr Tidmarsh to give a semblance of dignity to their party. They sat therefore in the hall; but the few minutes they had to wait before the arrival of their escorts proved even more painful to Emma than if she had entered the ballroom with Miss Bates looking like an over-upholstered chaise-longue on one side and Philomena looking like a Parisian actress on the other. For in a moment, the Westons had arrived and with them Frank Churchill who, smiling in the way a man does when he knows he is the handsomest and wittiest gentleman in the company, came straight to Emma and whispered in her ear, ‘So your husband leaves you like a wallflower to wait around for him. Be careful someone does not ask you where to put his cloak!’
Emma felt anger heat her up like an oven; the only release would have been to hit him with her fan or kick or stamp on his toes. Since none of these were possibilities open to a well-bred lady, she hissed, ‘You are a fool and a scoundrel!’
He met this with laughter even more infuriating and the comment, ‘What passion for my little pleasantry!’
Perhaps fortunately for Emma’s reputation, Mrs Tidmarsh joined them and it was agreed on Mr Churchill’s offering his services so that they should go in together.
‘The most amusing man in the room,’ whispered Philomena to Emma, behind her fan, as they left.
‘You will wait for Mr Knightley I have no doubt,’ said Mrs Weston as Emma stood to greet her friends, ‘but perhaps we may take in Miss Bates.’
‘Oh no, – I do not think – Mrs Knightley on her own...’ began Miss Bates, her words tailing away as she moved off on Mr Weston’s other arm.
So Emma had a moment longer to compose herself and to feel all the joy of seeing Mr Knightley’s arrival, tall, straight, kindly, a true gentleman.
‘What is it, Emma?’ he said at once. ‘You seem upset.’
‘No. No. Nothing.’
‘Was that the Westons and Mr Churchill I saw in front of us?’
‘Yes. They took Mrs Tidmarsh and Miss Bates.’
‘I am glad you waited.’
‘I would do no less. But where is Mr Tidmarsh?’
‘He has seen the Martins’ carriage and hovers like a dragonfly over water for Elizabeth. I believe we shall have an announcement there soon.’
‘She will make an excellent vicar’s wife,’ said Emma as they began to move along. Now there were the Coxes to be nodded to and Emma’s train to be lifted in one of her hands.
‘I can guess exactly what you are thinking,’ said Mr Knightley, just before they joined the company.
‘Oh, what!’ exclaimed Emma and her colour, which had just subsided, rose again. Could he have divined that Frank Churchill filled her thoughts?
‘You are thinking that at long last we are going to have all our curiosity satisfied and will feast our eyes on the remarkable Mrs Selina Suckling.’
Emma need only nod agreement, for here was the welcoming party, a bustle of Coles and Eltons, the huge Mr Suckling and somewhere among them a sturdy little woman, with no pretensions to looks or elegance, who must be, who could be, no other – except she looked so little the part – than the haughty owner of Maple Grove, the arbiter of taste and fortune, the scion of Bristol and Bath, the toast of the Gloucestershire countryside, the lady whose prospective disappointment in the Knightleys’ wedding arrangements had led her sister to call it ‘a most pitiful business’ (the words had been repeated by her maid in Ford’s and therefore heard by all of Highbury) – this lady now, round features as undistinguished and cheerful as a seller of buns on a London street, stood in front of them. Or rather she moved immediately towards Emma and Mr Knightley and, in a high, rather squeaky voice, began with unaffected words of delight in, at last, meeting her ‘dear sister’s dearest friends’. Such an assumption, so far from the truth, might have caused Emma to adopt a hauteur of which she was perfectly capable. But this Selina Suckling was so modest, so ordinary, so humble even, that it would have been like trampling on a sparrow.
‘Yes. We have expected your arrival over many months,’ Emma smiled.
‘Indeed. Perhaps you heard, our house suffered a partial collapse. I tell Mr Suckling it is the land. The land is soft and yet holds the water. Maple Grove is very ill-sited, I fear.’
‘Maple Grove ill-sited!’ exclaimed Emma, who had been taught by Mrs Elton to believe her sister’s house was the nearest thing to heaven on earth.
‘Oh, yes!’ bellowed the giant Mr Suckling, overhearing the end of the conversation. ‘I tell Mrs Suckling we should rename the house Maple Grave. But she insists it a morbid joke! Maple Grave, eh! Grave instead of Grove!’
‘We could have lost our lives – or the lives of our dear children,’ began Mrs Suckling again, when her husband’s pleasure at his witticism had diminished somewhat. ‘My father, you know, was in the building trade so I know—’
‘Mrs Knightley, Mr Knightley,’ interrupted Mrs Elton with shrill determination, ‘Mr Cole wishes to escort you over to the drinks table—’
Emma obeyed; Mr Knightley took her arm again; they had seen Mrs Suckling and for a moment Emma had forgotten Mr Churchill in the pleasure of discovering that the Mrs Selina Suckling who had, through the medium of her sister, entered Highbury as a despot could now, in her own person, be counted as nearer in spirit to Miss Bates.
‘We must begin the dancing,’ said Mr Cole to Mr Knightley. ‘I have engaged musicians, you know, from London. But if everybody stands around like this, we will never get more than half a dozen sets.’
‘I suppose you must arouse your guests of honour to their duty,’ suggested Mr Knightley tolerantly.
‘Yes. Yes. It is a fix. I told Mrs Cole it would be a fix. You see, neither Mrs Suckling nor my dear wife dance any more; they plead shortness of breath.’
‘And Mr Suckling?’ inquired Emma, smiling. ‘He certainly has the figure to make “A Trip to Highgate” all on his own.’
‘If only the guests would finish arriving and we could start,’ worried Mr Cole, looking towards where his wife, the Eltons and the Sucklings still held their ground by the door.
‘Ah, the Martins have come up now,’ said Mr Knightley.
Emma drew herself up and followed the direction of his gaze. There stood Harriet, silly, ignorant, sweet, spineless, Harriet who she had once patronised, encouraged, dropped and who was now rich, a mother and perhaps an object of her husband’s admiration. How happy she would have been to see her dressed vulgarly, with foolish pretension, with the tassels, lace and brocade that made Mrs Elton so easy to despise! But Augusta Elton had few claims on good looks and Harriet was in the golden blush of her greatest beauty; she might become overblown in time but now Emma saw a sylph of silver and blue gauze, as elegant and tasteful as anything she could imagine and, by her newly educated, London experience, very fashionable and very expensive.
‘Harriet looks – looks ...’ Emma was brave but Mr Knightley’s expression was veiled to her; she could not tell what he thought and she let her words die away.
The line was now in the process of formation: Mr Cole was to lead off with Mrs Elton; Mr Suckling, it transpired, still wanted a partner. It became sadly clear to Emma that her fate was to dance the first set she had enjoyed for two years with a man who was more like a ship set on its stern than a human being. Her eyes implored escape from Mr Knightley but the ship was bowing in front of her (as far as he was able), and Knightley only said with a smile, ‘Mrs Knightley and I will have the next. Pray, do not mind me, sir, I shall sit out or, if my feet insist on movement, find them another partner.’
The music, harpsichord, violin and cello, struck up and there were ten couples standing up. Emma, as keen to see what took place with the watchers as the dancers, saw Knightley join the Martins, kiss Harriet’s hand (or had she imagined that?), saw Mr Tidmarsh gesticulate at Elizabeth who laughed, saw Mr Martin, a little uncomfortable in his tails, saw, as she changed places again, Mr Churchill dancing down the line with one of the Miss Coxes and Mrs Tidmarsh standing up with Mr Weston. She saw much but heard little, for either the shrill tones of the musicians or the heavy breath – gasping and wheezing and panting – of her partner, from whom perspiration flew like the spray from the prow of a ship, blocked her ears to any outside sounds.
It gave her a sense of remoteness which accorded with her earlier sense of dread.
‘I have always admired the light step of a young lady,’ croaked Mr Suckling in a slower passage.
Emma smiled politely. She could hear him but it meant nothing. The dance continued. The dance finished. Mr Suckling had survived, although his face was almost the colour of Miss Bates’ brocade panels.
‘Mrs Knightley returned safe and sound,’ Mr Suckling handed Emma back before producing a large handkerchief and retiring behind a pillar.
‘Mrs Knightley is such a graceful dancer!’ exclaimed Harriet.
‘I would love a glass of wine,’ said Emma, fanning herself.
‘I do declare I could not take even the smallest glass of wine,’ said Harriet.
‘A glass of wine and not even the smallest glass of wine,’ said Knightley, lifting off two glasses from a passing waiter’s tray.
‘And may a mother dance?’ asked Emma.
‘I am afraid I have never learnt to dance.’ Mr Martin joined the conversation, his face so shaved and washed as almost to dispose of his usual handsomeness.
‘I remember Mr Knightley had the pleasure of standing up with Mrs Martin at our last Highbury ball,’ said Emma, determined to turn the knife in her own wound.
‘And would you like to stand up with me, my dear?’ Knightley took her hand, held it.
‘Yes,’ said Emma.
A happy dance; a rest; a dance with Mr Weston; a dance with Mr Cole; Emma began to feel that the evening, which seemed to swing from difficulty to pleasure, was settling on the right side when the last dance before supper was announced and with it appeared Frank Churchill. He bowed; his blue eyes, a little inflamed, looked into hers and asked for the honour of this dance, ‘Mr Beveridge’s Maggot’.
‘I am promised to Mr Knightley,’ said Emma.
‘That is odd; I am quite taken aback by that.’
‘I have only danced once with Mr Knightley.’
‘Of course I would understand that you would want to dance more than once with your husband; I do not dispute that; it is not my business as a mere friend – even as an intimate friend – to dispute that.’
‘You are not my intimate friend!’ Emma’s heart pounded, although why she should feel such a danger in a drawing-room, surrounded by all her friends, she could not tell!
‘Ah, that may be so; it is for you to say. But the reason you cannot stand up with your husband is because Mr Knightley has just led Harriet Martin to the head of the set.’
‘He is sorry for her!’ cried Emma, distracted. ‘Mr Martin does not dance. He does not know how.’
‘I do not doubt it. So will you dance with me? It is a waltz. You cannot resist a waltz. They will be off in a moment.’
‘I am tired.’
‘Too tired. Then let me find you a chair, a glass of water.’
‘I am too hot!’
‘Too hot for a chair, a glass of water? Perhaps the terrace? Perhaps a walk on the terrace. It is a beautiful evening: the stars are nearly as beautiful as the stars on your breast.’
‘It is too early for stars,’ Emma recovered herself a little. But a flash of Harriet’s silver and blue whirling past on Knightley’s arm was too much for her. She gasped and turned away.
Mr Churchill’s arm led her, took her out of sight of what she most feared to see. The terrace, through doors opening from the supper room, was cool, quiet, empty and one corner of it, to which Frank led her, secluded by a bower covered with flowering wisteria. A parapet running round the edge of the terrace, which then fell steeply to lawns below, made a seat which Frank immediately took.
Later, much later, when Emma tried to imagine why she had followed Frank, against all her instincts and judgement, to this delicate corner of spring, this lover’s place, she could only think it was her need to break her silent unhappiness with a confrontation, however painful, which caused her to do something so unladylike, so foolish, so wrong. Yet at the time, she merely thought of leaving the room in which Knightley danced – worse, waltzed – with Harriet.
‘This scent reminds me of Jane,’ Frank spoke in a low voice.
Emma did not hear the words for a moment; but joining company with Frank did not mean that she liked him any the better. ‘How can you say that!’
‘I can say that because I loved her.’
‘Love like yours is not worth having; it is not love; it is self-indulgence; it is fancy.’
‘Emma. Why are you so cruel? You used to understand.’
‘I desire you to leave Highbury.’ Emma stood in front of him. ‘The Westons are good people. They will look after your son. They do not deserve to be given pain – they have done you no harm; they admire you; they believe in you!’
‘What is it? Why do you speak like this? You see how I have changed; how I have reformed.’
‘I do not believe it—’
‘Do not believe it?’
‘You are too evil – I know—’
‘Know what? Know that I am passionate? That I can love more deeply than most men? Know that, although I can make a woman happy – oh how happy I made Jane for a while, you cannot deny me that! – Know also that my heart beats too fast, too hard—’ He stood, his handsome face filled with intensity. ‘I see a beautiful woman and, where a man with a colder heart can turn his back, walk away, talk calmly of the weather, the price of corn, his land, his politics, his money, everything in me rises to the beauty I see in front of me – I rise to it like a painter rises to art, a composer to music, a – oh Emma!’ He took two steps forward.
Emma looked at him with horror. He was making love to her, Mrs Knightley, in the dusky light, under the pendulous wisteria flowers, on the Coles’ terrace, during a dance given for the Sucklings. It was unimaginable. It was so unimaginable that she did not move away but stared, noticing his red lips, his dilated nostrils, the slightly lowered lids over his blue eyes.
He pounced forward suddenly; one arm round her waist, the other higher on the naked flesh at her neck; his breath on her cheek, his words pouring into her ear: ‘I have always known you loved me; I could not have you before – whatever you think of me, I was Jane’s then – ah, Jane, the best of me died with her – but now it is different. I see how you look at me, how your colour changes when I am near. You cannot disguise it from me, you cannot deny it – you love me! You need me! You are married, yes. Yes, you are married; but I have seen you with your husband, an old man; he has not awakened your love. No! No! He is good, you will tell me, kind, a gentleman. It is true but he cannot give you what I can – Oh, Emma, do not hold yourself from me. Come, let me kiss you! Let me show you how a young man makes love!’
Nothing in Emma’s experience had taught her how to deal with such a situation, with Frank’s clasping hands, his hot face, his breath so close, filled with tobacco and wine. Her instinctive desire to scream and wrench herself out of his arms was immediately followed by the realisation that she was only a short distance from the supper room whose doors stood open and beyond that lay the larger chamber where, judging by the music which still played gaily in the background – which had played throughout Frank’s declaration – her husband still waltzed with Harriet Martin. But this must be finished very soon and then the whole company would flow into the supper room and many, heated by their exercise, would hasten into the fresh air, provided so thoughtfully for them by Mr Cole, in conjunction with the excellent weather. If only it had rained, thought Emma wildly, she would not have found herself in such a terrible situation!
‘Mr Churchill—’ she began in wavering tones. Quiet sensible words could be her only armour.
‘No, Emma! That will not do! This coldness does not accord with meetings on river-banks, with flushed cheeks and panting bosom, with a hand snatched from mine—!’
‘You mistake me – you have mistaken me – you fill me with—’ she stopped, knowing Frank enough to understand that the word she was about to use – ‘disgust’ – would only inflame him further. ‘Mr Knightley will come out any moment. Mr Weston, too, your own father—’
‘You are not so sensible as this – I know it – I must have a kiss—’
That burning breath on her face again – his lips against hers – ‘Please – no!’
The noise of her heart, of his heart, of their panting, his pleading, her trembling words, had blocked Emma’s ears to the sound of music. She did not hear it ending. As Frank placed his lips on hers, there was a noise that seemed as loud to her as a cavalry charge and Frank was sprung from her and in a second disappeared altogether from her view. Emma stood swaying dazedly.
‘You are not hurt?’ Mr Knightley was at her side, although not touching her.
‘No. I—’
‘He has gone over the parapet.’ Knightley went to the stone ledge and looked over. ‘He is a little wounded, I believe, but not mortally.’ His tone was dispassionate. ‘The grass is too soft.’
‘He—’
‘We shall say he fell—’ Knightley spoke more quickly because a rush of guests, following the end of the dance, had come through on to the terrace, led by Mrs Tidmarsh, Mr Cole and the Eltons. ‘Go inside, and I shall deal with Mr Churchill.’
‘He is not dead?’ asked Emma, hardly knowing what she said.
‘Unfortunately not. Go now. Stop; let me arrange your hair.’ He did so, his hands businesslike about her face; and yet she could feel they shook. Emma, murmuring she knew not what, passed by Mrs Tidmarsh and the others, just as Mr Knightley’s strong voice called, loud enough for everyone to hear: ‘May I be of assistance, Mr Churchill? I hope you are not hurt!’
Emma hesitated a moment but the response, and living response there certainly came, was too muffled for her or anyone else to make out. Opening her fan, she went quickly to the supper table and there found a place beside Mrs Weston, as a child may find shelter beside her mother from the terrors of the world.
‘Well, my dear,’ Mrs Weston patted her hand, ‘you are heated for one who has come from outside. Let me advise a glass of wine and water.’
Emma took the glass and drank deeply. As her composure returned she waited for the news of Frank’s fall to overwhelm the happiness of the evening.