“More than an attachment—a positive engagement. What will you say, Emma, what will anybody say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are engaged—nay, that they have been long engaged?”
Emma even jumped with surprise and consternation. Jane Fairfax! Mrs. Weston is not serious. She does not mean it?
“You may well be amazed,” returns Mrs. Weston, steadily averting her eyes; “you may well be amazed.”
There had been a solemn engagement between them ever since October, formed at Weymouth, and kept a secret from everybody, not a creature knowing it but themselves, neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.
Emma scarcely hears what is said. Her mind is divided between two overwhelming ideas—her own former conversations with him about Jane Fairfax, and poor Harriet. “Well,” she exclaims at last, “this is a circumstance I must think of at least half a day before I can comprehend it. What! engaged to her all the winter, before either of them came to Highbury?”
“It has hurt me very much,” said Mrs. Weston; “it has hurt his father equally; some part of his conduct we cannot excuse.”
Emma cannot pretend to misunderstand the speaker’s meaning. On the contrary, she is eager and glad to remove this load from the Westons’ minds. In a few words she explains that Frank Churchill’s attentions to her have not produced the effect his father and mother feared. It seems too good news to be true; but Emma confirms her assertions of indifference by owning there was a time when she did like him, but that time soon passed—why, she cannot tell, and she has not cared about him for the last three months.
Mrs. Weston kisses her, and cries with joy and thankfulness. On this point she and her husband have been wretched. They had warmly wished the match, and heartily believed in a mutual attachment. They have been miserable on Emma’s account.
Emma is grateful for her escape, but she is by no means inclined to excuse the offender. She turns, with her usual frankness and fervour, to protest against his conduct. “What right had he to come among us with affections and faith engaged, and manners so very disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please—as he certainly did—to distinguish any young woman, as he certainly did, while he really belonged to another? How could she bear such behaviour? Composure, with a witness! to look on while repeated attentions were offering to another woman before her face, and not resent it.”
Now that Mrs. Weston’s mind is so agreeably relieved, she seeks to find an apology for the delinquents.