Jane Fairfax

by Joan Aiken

  “So you agree!” cried Frank, delighted. “You do agree! You are an angel, and you have the honourable feelings of a queen. And I shall come to Highbury as often as I can, when you are settled there, and, among those good simple people, all those friends whom you love so dearly, and in that rural setting, I shall woo you as warmly as Corydon ever wooed his Phyllida. You shall soon see how constant, how persistent my devotion will be. And for a pledge —” he pulled from his pocket a little box — “as a pledge, dear, dearest Miss Fairfax, will you not accept this?”

  The box held a ring, a glint of silver, a tear of opal. “It was my mother’s: when young Captain Weston first wooed her, this was all he could afford. Will you keep it for me? Will you wear it round your neck on a ribbon?”

  Somehow he had insinuated the box into her hands. “It is very beautiful,” she sighed, looking down. “The most beautiful thing.”

  A mist of tears caused it to shimmer in her vision. One fell into the box.

  “I have pressed you too much,” said Frank Churchill with remorse. “I have hurried you; I ought not to have thrust myself upon you when you were so wretched and cast down. But I had to take the chance, I could not lose such an opportunity. And I could not bear to leave you so sad and heartsick. Promise me that, at least, you feel a trifle better now; that I have distracted your thoughts just a little?” he ended with his persuasive smile.

  She could not help smiling back.

  “You know that you have.”

  “Then I believe that my whole life up to this point has been justified!”

  “My coach will soon be arriving,” said Jane. “In fact I think I see it there.” And she began to hurry towards York Buildings.

  Frank Churchill attended her into her conveyance with every care.

  “I shall be counting the days until we meet again at Highbury. I shall be counting the hours!”

  He held her hand long and warmly.

  “Goodbye, Mr Churchill,” said Jane, wondering how she could ever have let herself be persuaded into such a wildly untoward course of action, clean contrary to all her sense of right. She feared that, for the sake of present relief, she had rendered herself liable to a future of perpetual agitation and trial.

  And yet her heart was lighter. He had spoken the truth.

  “No, no, not goodbye. Never goodbye!” He had closed the door but left the window open, to exhort her through it. “Till we meet again at Highbury. Let me hear you repeat those words.”

  “At Highbury, then.”

  Satisfied, he stepped back; the driver cracked his whip and the horses were at once in motion.

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter 11

  After two days’ travel, and the intervening night spent at Southampton, Jane reached Highbury in such a state of low spirits and fatigue, and with her cold decidedly worsened, that, after administering hot negus and sandwiches, her fond relatives put her straight to bed, with many lamentations regarding her pallor and thinness.

  “Hetty,” said Mrs Bates, “the child is as tired as she can be. No talking now.”

  For once the old lady had her way, and Jane was allowed to sink into the comfort of her own old hammock-shaped mattress in the enfolding luxury of a country silence. But, alas! sleep did not follow so quickly. The future of perpetual agitation and troubled conscience that she had foretold for herself lay in the future no more, but had become the present. Back here in her first home, with the two who loved her most dearly in the world, she found herself hampered by a secret that hung round her neck, along with Frank Churchill’s ring, as heavily as any penitential chain. Openness and candor had always been as natural to her as breathing; now they were denied to her.

  Next morning Jane insisted that she was well enough to join her aunt and grandmother at breakfast, but they had reason to bewail the smallness of her appetite.

  “Only half a slice of bread-and-butter! And our country bread, our country butter is so good, so superior to any that you might procure at Weymouth or London; but we shall soon have you better. We shall indeed! Three whole months at least in Highbury! We never were so long without you before, but three whole months now will make up for that. We shall not know how to make enough of you. All our friends are so rejoiced for us; they will soon be calling themselves —”

  The promised friends soon, indeed, began arriving, making their way up the narrow, inconvenient little stairway alongside the barber’s shop, and into Mrs Bates’s small upstairs front parlour, with its tiny fireplace, window-seat, beaufet, and four prim Windsor chairs. — What will Frank Churchill think when he first sees this? was Jane’s uncontrollable reaction when plump Mrs Cole and even plumper Mrs Goddard squeezed their way up the stair, with gifts of honey and new-laid eggs, and the whole room seemed crammed with female persons.

  “Do you come up too, Mr Knightley!” called Miss Bates out of the casement, seeing him on his horse in the High Street outside. “We have such a pleasant gathering here, Mrs Cole and Mrs Goddard come to congratulate us on having our dear Jane again —”

  “Then you will have no room for me,” he replied, taking off his hat and bowing. “But pray give Miss Jane Fairfax my kind remembrances and I look forward to seeing her very soon at a time when you have more space withindoors.”

  Jane caught the tones of his voice and was warmed by the message, but at the same time felt a sorrowful pang. Here was another friend, and a dear and kind friend, to whom her heart could never again be truly open. Nor, even, could her feelings towards him be the same. In the past, she confessed to herself, there had always been that faint bewitching childish hope that some day, some distant future day, he would suddenly reveal that his affections had always been hers — since the time of the riding lessons. But now, even if he did so — and the possibility had certainly grown dimmer in her mind with the accretion of years and common sense — even if he did so, she would be obliged to decline his offers. She was fixed, committed, to another; and another, she could not in her innermost heart deny, of lesser quality than Mr Knightley. Would Mr Knightley ever suggest, ever consent to, a secret engagement? Jane was very certain that he would not. But then, similarly circumstanced, how would he behave? Perhaps the comparison was unfair. Mr Knightley was a man of independent fortune, always had been; he was obliged to conciliate nobody. Still, the comparison would recur …

  “Jane, my dear, your wits are woolgathering,” exclaimed her aunt Hetty. “Here is kind Mrs Cole, making you such a generous, obliging offer —”

  “Only the other day I was telling Mr Cole that I really am ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our two little girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make anything of it; you are welcome, my dear, at any hour of the morning or afternoon to come to our house and practise on it to your heart’s content; indeed it does seem a shame that you do not have an instrument here —”

  “Or, you may come to the school, any afternoon after three, when the girls give over practising,” chimed in Mrs Goddard, “though I am obliged to admit that our instrument, due to the continual use it receives, is not of such a quality as one might —”

  “I was saying to Mr Cole only yesterday how dreadful it is that poor Jane, who is mistress of music, has not even the pitifullest old spinet in the world to amuse herself with, and he quite agreed —”

  Next Mrs Weston arrived, with a gift of some cream cheeses, and Jane looked with renewed interest at this pleasant, fresh-faced lady who had formerly been Emma Woodhouse’s governess and was now Frank Churchill’s stepmother. And she had not yet met Frank! How strange that was! Jane both dreaded and longed that the conversation might advert to him, to his arrival, or his non-arrival; but it turned, instead, upon Emma Woodhouse and her recent, rather unaccountable friendship with little Harriet Smith.

  “I was surprised, I must confess, when it first began,” Mrs Weston was saying. “Such a difference, you know, in their — in their respective circ
umstances, and in their mental attainments; but of course for Emma’s sake I was very happy; a woman always feels such comfort in the society of one of her own sex. And poor Emma — you know — However Mr Knightley does not agree with me; he feels that the society of such a compliant little creature as Harriet must only increase dear Emma’s tendency to lead —”

  Jane was listening to this with real interest, but Mrs Cole broke in. “Mr Elton has been calling very frequently at Hartfield, has he not? Before Christmas my Lucy — she is niece to Mr Woodhouse’s Serle, you know — Lucy said that Mr Elton had been there almost every day! It did seem most particular — but whether — but which young lady he —”

  “Oh,” struck in Miss Bates, “I am not at all quick at those sort of discoveries! What is before me, I see. But I do not conjecture. I am not clever at supposition. Now Jane, here, of course, has never met Mr Elton! — Our new young vicar, you know, Jane dear; he was appointed after the death of our kind Mr Pryor — such a worthy, excellent young man. I am sure any young lady he — At present he is away in Bath, but you will meet him soon enough. So very attentive to your grandmother and me — always insists, you know, on our sitting in the vicarage pew, because of grandmother being a little hard of hearing —”

  “Here is Miss Woodhouse, ma’am!” announced Patty up the stairs, and the next moment Emma Woodhouse was among them, looking, Jane had to admit to herself, uncommonly elegant in a fur-trimmed bonnet and pelisse — quite the equal of any of the society ladies at Weymouth. She carried a beautiful plant in a pot.

  Mrs Cole reddened, appearing a little conscious, and said that she must really be going; she and Mrs Goddard speedily took themselves away down the stair; but Mrs Weston gave Emma the hearty greeting of old affection, and Emma herself bade Jane welcome back to Highbury with every friendly courtesy and grace. Emma Woodhouse had now, Jane must acknowledge, an appearance that must please any but the severest critic: a pretty height that anybody might think tall, but not too tall; her size perhaps just a fraction plump, but graceful; her complexion bore the exquisite glow and bloom of good health and untroubled temper. Her manner was open, friendly, and conciliating; try as she would, Jane could find no fault with it. She behaved just as she should to the old lady and to Aunt Hetty; asked just the questions she ought about Weymouth, Colonel and Mrs Campbell, Jane’s future plans, her present emotions on returning to the place of her birth; acted, in short, so much like a kindly generous friend and neighbour that, when the visit was done, Jane found herself assailed by feelings of guilt and contrition.

  “She really is perfectly amiable, simple, and unassuming! I cannot imagine why, all these years, I have been making her into such a monster! She is not to be held responsible for her behaviour at six, just after losing her much-loved mother. And, poor thing, she must be excessively lonely if she finds herself obliged to make friends with such an insipid, dull little creature as I remember that Harriet Smith. Mr Knightley always did want Emma and me to be friends. I will think and act differently towards her, I will indeed, from now on.”

  But an evening passed at Hartfield two days later reversed these kindly feelings.

  “Why does Miss Woodhouse not invite us to dine? Why do we go in after dinner?” Jane asked her aunt as they waited for the Hartfield carriage to pick them up.

  “Oh! my dear. The Woodhouses very seldom have dinner guests. You know Mr Woodhouse is so —”

  “They invite the Westons to dinner. And Mr Knightley. And, I am told, Mr Elton.”

  “Well: gentlemen are — and Miss Woodhouse knows that we — and ladies, you know, when they are on their own, are —”

  In short, thought Jane, ladies on their own must expect lesser consideration. It was an idea that had not, until recently, entered her mind, but must do so more frequently now that she had left the Campbell family and was confronting her own doubtful prospects.

  The evening at Hartfield, most regrettably, brought back all Jane’s previous antipathetic feelings towards Emma Woodhouse. Former provocations reappeared. Emma’s kindly solicitude towards the older ladies could not redeem her other faults. True, tea and coffee were offered repeatedly, and the muffin was handed round twice. But she does that since she knows she owes it to her own consequence, as lady of the house, thought Jane. Not from true open-heartedness.

  Mr Knightley was present (had already dined there) and asked for music. The young ladies, both young ladies, played and sang. Emma’s conduct, again, appeared impeccable: she praised Jane’s performance with taste and discrimination, she asked for more. But it is all hypocrisy, thought Jane. And a kind of wilful self-denigration. She knows, very well, that the standard of her own playing lacks polish; that she could have done far better if she had practised more. She had played some light Scotch and Irish ditties and an overture by Cimarosa. Whereas Jane had played a really difficult set of variations and overture by Pleyel, which was vigorously clapped by her audience, though she suspected that they had not been listening.

  Why does Emma not practise more? Jane wondered. She has all the time in the world. What does she do with her days? How does she ever get through them? — Here, unexpectedly, like a leaf floating upstream against the current, came a feeling of unbidden pity for Emma. But this vanished with speed when the talk turned to Weymouth. Emma seemed, thought Jane, so very, so particularly curious — not to say inquisitorial — about Frank Churchill.

  “Was he handsome? Was he agreeable? Had Miss Fairfax known him well? Did he appear a sensible young man, a young man of information? Would he make a pleasant addition to their circle when chance, or his own inclination, at last brought him to Highbury?”

  Jane felt there was more than simple neighbourly interest in these deft probings; Emma somehow, by some witchcraft, some prescience of her own, had already, it seemed, fathomed the connection between Jane and Frank; she possessed that kind of instinctive shrewdness, rather than real intellectual power; she would almost certainly be the one to expose their secret and bring it to light.

  And when they parted she said laughingly, “You look so beautiful, nowadays, Miss Fairfax, and so elegant, I cannot stop admiring you! Do you remember the days when you wore my old puce-coloured merino pelisse?”

  “And your mother left me one hundred pounds,” lay unspoken between them; one hundred pounds which still remained intact as an insurance against future exigencies.

  Jane could not forgive her.

  The gift of a whole fore-quarter of pork from Hartfield next day only deepened the injury. “Now I suppose we shall have to go and thank them yet again,” said Jane ungratefully.

  “My dear! Indeed we must. A whole quarter. Such bounty! Quite overwhelming. I shall invite the Coles to come and dine off the loin with us — I can do that, you know, on the way back from Hartfield — but first I must run down to ask Patty if we brought the biggest salting-pan with us on our removal from the vicarage — Oh, my dear Jane, will you really go instead? — that is so very obliging of you —”

  A knock at the door and the delivery of a note from Mrs Cole changed the direction of Aunt Hetty’s thought.

  “Why! Good gracious me! Mr Elton is to be married! Only listen to this! Mrs Cole writes to me — Mr Cole having just the moment before informed her, upon receipt of a letter from Mr Elton — he is engaged to a Miss Hawkins of Bath — well! I was never so astonished in my life! A Miss Hawkins — of Bath!”

  Here Jane, in imagination, heard Mrs Fitzroy saying, “Hawkins? What kind of a name is that?”

  Aunt Hetty went on: “And there was Mrs Cole remarking, only the other day — but I never thought so. Well, you will be happy now, ma’am, will you not?” (To her mother). “The poor old vicarage is to have a mistress again. And a delightful new neighbour for us all. This is excellent news! We must run up to Hartfield directly. Jane, wrap up close in your warmer pelisse, for it may rain later on.”

  At Hartfield they found Mr Knightley, and Miss Bates was able, but only just, to forestall him with the announcement o
f Mr Elton’s engagement.

  “There is the news with which I had hoped to surprise you,” said Mr Knightley smiling at Emma — who had received it, Jane thought, with a slightly conscious look; had she hopes of Mr Elton for herself?

  “But where could you hear the news?” cried Miss Bates, astounded. “Where could you possibly hear it, Mr Knightley?”

  “I was with Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just read Elton’s letter.”

  How can one hope to keep anything hidden in this place? thought Jane.

  “A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!” repeated Miss Bates joyfully. “My mother is so pleased! Jane, you have never seen Mr Elton — no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see him.”

  Jane roused herself from a sad reverie, which had taken her back to that last day in Weymouth. Saying goodbye to Rachel, to Matt — his nervous start away from her proffered hand … Walking up to Hartfield this morning, a mild fresh springlike morning of alternate shine and shower, she had felt almost unreal, as if this familiar Highbury, with its cobbles and narrow passage-ways, its bow-windowed cottages, newer brick houses of more dignity, its church, forge, and stables, were no more than a dream, from which she might at any moment awaken to find herself back on the Esplanade with Rachel, the Campbells — the Selseas, Mr Gillender —

  “No: I have never seen Mr Elton,” she replied, starting as her aunt addressed her. “Is he — is he a tall man?”

  “Who shall answer that question?” cried Emma. “My father would say yes, Mr Knightley no, and Miss Bates and I that he is just the happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax, you will understand that Mr Elton is the standard of perfection in Highbury, both in person and mind.” She cast a saucy, teasing look at Mr Knightley; plainly, thought Jane, there was something relating to Mr Elton.

  “If you remember, my dear Jane,” said her aunt, “I told you yesterday he was precisely the height of Mr Perry.”