“Indeed I will. You have shown that you can dance, and you know we are not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”
“Brother and sister!—no, indeed.”
As ill luck will have it, the very next day Frank Churchill rescues Harriet Smith from the rudeness of a party of tramps and gipsies, and brings her on his arm to the nearest house (Hartfield); when, acting according to the instincts of such amiable but helpless heroines, Harriet immediately faints away.
Such a romantic adventure is not lost on Emma. It stimulates immensely her idle dream of how handsome a young couple Frank Churchill and Harriet would make, and how desirable it would be to bring them together.
Emma is not deterred from this last mischievous crochet, by a special revelation of Harriet’s former foolish sentiments, which the girl considers herself called on to make. Mr. Elton has behaved so very badly to Harriet, that meek as the girl is, she can admire him at a humble distance no longer. She brings solemnly to Emma a little Tunbridge box, full of treasures which have become valueless, and which Harriet wishes Miss Woodhouse should see her destroy. There is a bit of court-plaister, left over from a piece with which Emma had made Harriet supply Mr. Elton, when he had happened to cut his hand in their service. There is also a stump of a pencil, which he flung aside after he had used up the lead in writing a recipe for spruce-beer, at Mr. Knightley’s dictation.
Emma is lost between wonder and shame. Harriet’s auto da fé has a double motive. She can no longer reverence Mr. Elton, and she can reverence another man, for whose sake she vaguely protests she is determined to remain single, since it would be utter presumption in her to think he could ever seek her out.
Emma gathers as much as this from her companion, and hesitates, with just a grain of dawning prudence, whether she ought to speak, or let Harriet’s heroic resolution pass in silence.
But Harriet may think it unkind; besides, just a little encouragement, judiciously administered, may not be amiss to check further confidences on Harriet’s part. She is to be shown that her “dear Miss Woodhouse” does not disapprove of her aspirations, and at the same time made to comprehend that the old, improper, undesirable discussion of hopes and chances is not to be renewed. Therefore, without mentioning Frank Churchill’s name, Emma tells Harriet that her feelings are natural and honourable to her, and at the same time bestows on her some excellent significant advice about not giving way to her feelings; on the contrary, she must let the gentleman’s behaviour be the guide to her sentiments as well as to her conduct. But Emma rather undoes her teaching by volunteering an additional “He is your superior, no doubt, and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place; there have been matches of greater disparity.”
At the end of the little lecture Harriet is at once grateful and submissive.
In the course of the summer, when, from Mr. and Mrs. Churchill’s staying so near as Richmond, Frank Churchill can come often to Randalls, Mr. Knightley, who has taken an early dislike to the popular young man, learns to dislike him still more. He, Mr. Knightley, begins to suspect double dealing on Frank Churchill’s part, double dealing which has to do with Emma Woodhouse and Jane Fairfax. It seems plain that Emma is his object. His own attentions coincide with his father’s hints, and his step-mother’s guarded silence. But while all their world is giving Frank Churchill to Emma, and Emma herself is secretly giving him to Harriet, Mr. Knightley learns to suspect him of an inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax.