Jane Austen and her works

by Sarah Tytler

Emma’s letter to Harriet, written the first thing before breakfast, is so hard a task that Mr. Knightley, in walking over to breakfast, does not come too soon. He has not left her long when a thick packet from Mrs. Weston encloses Frank Churchill’s promised explanation.

It is a good letter—appealing not unsuccessfully to the candour and indulgence of his reader. The writer dwells eloquently on all the difficulties which beset his devoted attachment to Miss Fairfax, so that if he had not persuaded her to stoop to a secret engagement, he must have gone mad. He confesses ingenuously what had really been the motive of his first visit to Highbury.

He admits that his attentions to Miss Woodhouse were partly for the purpose of assisting in the concealment of his real object. But he insists that, if he had not been convinced of her indifference, he would not have acted as he did. They seemed to understand each other. When he called to take leave of her, he had been on the verge of confessing the truth. He believes she had some suspicion of it. He remembers her telling him at the ball that he ought to be grateful to Mrs. Elton. His heart was in Highbury, and his business was to get his body there as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.

Of the piano so much talked of, he need not say that it was ordered entirely without the knowledge of Miss Fairfax, who would never have allowed him to send it had any choice been given her. Afterwards he had behaved shamefully. Does Mrs. Weston remember the morning at Donwell? He was late. He met Miss Fairfax walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her; but she would not suffer it. He had thought her over-cautious, even cold. He now saw she was perfectly right. “While I, to blind the world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a proposal which might have made every previous precaution useless? Had we been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must have been suspected. I was mad enough, however, to resent—I doubted her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill, when, provoked by such conduct on my side—such shameful, insolent neglect of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been impossible for any woman of sense to endure—she spoke her resentment in a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.”

Even then he was not such a fool as not to mean to be reconciled in time; but he went away, determined that she should make the first advances.

In the meantime she closed with the offer of a situation as governess; and wrote to him that, as she felt the engagement to be a source of repentance and misery to each, she dissolved it.

The letter reached him on the very morning of his aunt’s death. He answered it within the hour, but in the confusion which followed, his answer, instead of being sent off with the many letters despatched that day, was locked up in his writing-desk, while he trusted that he had said enough, though in but a few lines, to satisfy her. He was surprised at getting no answer till he received a parcel—his own letters returned, with a note stating her surprise at not having heard from him in reply to her last letter, and begging him to forward her letters to Mrs. Smallridge’s, near Bristol.

He knew the name, the place, and instantly saw what she had been about. What was to be done? One thing only. He must speak to his uncle; without his sanction Frank could not hope to be listened to again. And Mr. Churchill, softened by the late event, was earlier reconciled than Frank could have ventured to expect.

Is Mrs. Weston disposed to pity Frank for having to plead his cause with so much at stake? She must not pity him till he reached Highbury, and saw how ill he had made her. He knew when to find her alone. A great deal of very reasonable—very just—displeasure he had to persuade away. But it was done; they were reconciled—dearer, much dearer, than ever.

The letter makes its way to Emma’s heart. Frank had been wrong, but he has suffered, and is very sorry; and he is so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and Emma is so happy herself, that there is no being severe. Could he have entered the room, she must have shaken hands as heartily as ever.