A society totally unused to dramatic events in its midst soon loses the power of recognising such events when they do occur. It would have been thought impossible to all at Highbury that handsome, rich, well-bred Frank Churchill (doted on by Mr Weston and his wife) should pounce on Mrs Knightley with the intention of making love to her – by force, if persuasion failed, and within reach of the respectable company gathered at the Coles’ – and that, furthermore, the calm, sensible Mr Knightley would be so incensed that he should throw Mr Churchill over the wall, to the danger of his life. It was impossible; it could not have happened. They were therefore compelled to believe the only slightly more likely possibility, that a young, active man had accidentally fallen off a parapet. This story, however, came with the imprimatur of Mr Knightley ~ a man respected for his absolute integrity. Mr Knightley, a gentleman-landowner, a magistrate, did not lie.
So, the general happiness of the Sucklings’ Ball was not dispelled. Eating, drinking continued; and after supper, three more dances were performed with as much enthusiasm as before; water still sprayed from Mr Suckling’s face; Miss Bates and Mrs Suckling struck up a most happy friendship in the card room; Mrs Elton told Harriet Martin of the two new rooms she planned for the Vicarage with wallpaper especially designed; Mr Martin behaved nobly and admired his wife dancing; Elizabeth Martin and the Reverend Dugobair Tidmarsh danced once, causing some confusion by the waywardness of Mr Tidmarsh’s feet, and then spent the rest of the evening in earnest conversation – if conversation exists where one speaks and the other listens. All this continued as happily as if Mr Churchill, somewhat bruised and shaken, had not been escorted to his lodgings by Mrs Weston who wished to leave early to tend to her babies; as if Mrs Tidmarsh had not elected to accompany them, suffering from a headache. This was an accident and departures, though to be deplored, were not serious enough to quench the gaiety of the occasion, already well established.
Emma, who most wished to leave, knew she could not, and waited bravely, joining herself to Miss Bates and Mrs Suckling where her silence was unnoticed in the generous flow of words. Mr Knightley did not come near her till the end.
‘Our carriage is here.’ He bowed. ‘Miss Bates. Mr Tidmarsh is already by the door.’
***
Oh, what paradings must be gone through before Emma could reach her room! The endless thanks, the journey back through the still soft night – the return to Hartfield where her father sat up yet and Mrs Goddard must be sent home in the carriage – the need to offer drinks – her only relief that Philomena was not in the drawing-room, having retired to her chamber. Her eye would have been too sharp!
At last, with weary steps, Emma mounted to her bedroom and there – any further action beyond her – she sat down on an armchair and waited for what must follow. A few moments more and Mr Knightley was with her; casting a brief glance at her, he went and stood silently by the window, his face turned away. Usually so controlled and deliberate in his manner, now his fingers pulled and twitched at the hangings.
At last Emma could bear it no longer. ‘Speak! Speak! Say I am a fool!’
He turned, came into the room, peered at her, and then sat heavily on her little chair at the dressing-table. ‘Say you are a fool? Ah. I would not say that.’ He fell silent again.
‘Please!’
‘You say “please”.’ Now he spoke with more passion. ‘What should I answer? I have known for many months now that you thought you loved him – I will not say that you truly loved him because I cannot believe so ill of you; I cannot despise you as I should have to do – He is young, charming, you are young, charming – you were drawn together before, you are drawn together now – it is natural—’
‘But, Knightley—’
‘Emma, now I must plead with you – I can bear everything but your lies – I know that you saw him last autumn – I hoped it would pass – you would forget – I thought perhaps London, a wider society, would make you see him for what he is—’
‘Believe me, Frank—’
‘Don’t call him that!’
‘My feelings for Mr Churchill—’
‘Oh!’ Mr Knightley put his head in his hands.
‘My feelings are not what you believe—’
‘You still will not understand. I know that you saw him several times last summer – I know that he held you under the willow, beside the river at Donwell—’ he lifted his head and stared wildly, ‘that he held you in his arms on my land, in view of my house, the house you do not wish to live in – I am not a fool, Emma, nor can I pretend to myself, that faculty has been left out of my make-up – I know you dread being alone with me at Donwell, because you cannot love me! You wish to, I have no doubt, I do not doubt you wish that your feelings were different for me – your love for him is not a comfortable love—’
‘I do not love him!’
‘I repeat – you were seen – it was reported – your manner ever since would have told me if Mr Martin had not—’
‘Mr Martin?’
‘I did not mean to say – but what does it matter? What does anything matter?’ His head was in his hands. ‘I am to blame. I should not have married you. I thought you loved me – and then I thought my love was enough for both of us—’
‘How can I make you understand! I felt sorry for – him – in the beginning—’
‘You could have told me—’
‘I planned to – Oh how I wish I had!’ ‘Ah, wishes – wishes after the event—’
‘He was desperate; he begged me not to tell anyone; he said he would drown himself in the river—’ ‘And you believed that? Emma—’
‘Not exactly; but he was mad, tragic – I felt sorry for him – Every day I planned to tell you – but John’s sadness came—’
‘You blame my brother for your secrecy?’
‘No – a little; I am only trying to explain how it happened—’
‘You loved him; he held you in his arms then; he held you in his arms tonight—’
‘Against my will! Please, you must understand, it is true that last year I did feel sorry for him but then I did not know what he was – now, now, he disgusts me!’
‘Such passion? Disgusts – it is too much. Why should such a handsome gentleman disgust. It is too much. You must moderate a little if you are to inspire belief. Disgust, like hatred, can be a part of love.’
‘No. No!’ Emma stood, suddenly, and ran next door; the letter from Isabella – he could see then how disgust was not a part of some degenerate love. She thrust the letter at him. ‘Read, read it. Then you will see how I could not love such a man – now I could not even feel sorry for him! Read!’
Mr Knightley read. The candlelight lit up his pale features, his frowning forehead, the grey in his thick hair, the lines beside his mouth. Emma, unable to sit down quietly, hung over him, wringing her hands, pulling at her hair. He read and put down the paper on her dressing-table. ‘He is worse than I had imagined.’
‘How could I love such a man!’
He looked at her desperate face. He looked long before he spoke. ‘No, you could not.’
‘You see! You see! He attacked me. I only did not scream because of the Westons, because of you. He forced himself on me. And by the bank, he grasped at me to save himself from slipping into the water. It was but a moment.’
‘Can this be true? Can all these months of agony have been for nothing?’ He was utterly bowed.
‘Sit with me!’ cried Emma.
He came; they sat together on the bed, arms round each other, exhausted; but a little spark of hope had been lit in Knightley’s breast. However, before Emma could fan it into greater life, with tender looks and caresses, it was quenched again with further remembrance.
‘But why, if this is true – if he was nothing to you but an object of pity – why did you keep it secret from me for all these months? This year when he nearly burnt Donwell you must have guessed I knew, protected him for your sake – Why, even now when you received this letter from your sister, did you not show it to me? I cannot pass over these facts, Emma, much as I might wish to. Only love would explain such secrecy.’
‘I should have – I know – so often I have tried – but – we have not always been in sympathy—’ There, she had said it; she had admitted that all was not quite well between them. In her mind’s eyes she saw the red of Frank’s lips and then Harriet Martin’s white bosom that dreadful evening of the dinner at Randalls.
‘Not in sympathy,’ he repeated her words but rather as if he accepted them than questioned them.
‘Sometimes you have not seemed to want – to be close to me—’
‘Oh, Emma! Can you not understand! I thought you loved someone else, that my presence was borne as a duty rather than a pleasure. I had too much pride to force myself on you when I was not welcome. If you knew how I long—!’ he stopped.
Emma was confused; these passionate looks, these hints of self-discipline. Now she must say everything. ‘But do you not – I thought – Harriet Martin – so beautiful, warm, a mother, so amenable, open—’
‘Harriet Martin? Why do you talk of Harriet Martin? What is Harriet Martin doing between us?’
‘I imagined you admired her – you sang – you danced—’
Knightley leant back a little so that he could better see the expression on Emma’s face. ‘You are not joking. You think that anyone who has an Emma Woodhouse as a wife could ever look at a Harriet Martin! Your modesty astounds me! It is only that, that stops me from feeling your words are an insult. How could you believe such a thing for one second – unless, unless—’ his voice changed, ‘it were an excuse for your own feelings for him—’
‘No! No!’ Emma held him, pressed her cheek close to his, ‘You must never think that again!’
‘And yet there is something more to be explained,’ again Knightley pushed her away and his face was grave. ‘Perhaps there are many more things. You found me unsympathetic?’
‘Oh, let us forget—’
‘No. No. We must not. I must ask you. This – lack of sympathy – did you feel it before – he – returned to Highbury? Was it in our marriage before then?’
Emma gazed at her hands, was silent.
‘Tell me. You had always looked on me more as a father, brother—’
‘Not any more!’
‘But it was so, for sixteen years of your life. The change to lover was sudden for you; I had loved you for so long – I knew this; I was careful, aware of the disparity in our ages – I did not wish to frighten you – you were hardly more than a child—’
‘I was not a child!’ interrupted Emma.
‘No. No. I feel now perhaps I was wrong – oh, my dear, I was afraid to show you the depths of my love for you, my urgent need – my dearest, dearest Emma!’
Now Emma must express her love for him and he must say everything he felt for her as often as they could both enjoy the hearing. The night was dark, the night was long. Expressions of love more heartfelt than any that had been spoken between them before kept them awake for many hours. It was as if the nineteen months that they had already passed as man and wife, with all the joy, pain, turmoil and discovery, had only been a preparation for this long night of love.