Chapter Nine #2
Emma’s fingers stilled for a moment, her hand atop his, and she burst into an absurd fit of giggles. This was utterly ludicrous!
“I do love to make the ladies laugh,” Mr. Bingley deadpanned. “Have you any hope of freeing me?”
“I am trying, but there is a very large tear. I hope you are averting your gaze, sir.”
“It is dark, Miss Woodhouse – but I take no pleasure in this predicament.”
Emma laughed again. “Nor I.”
“Perhaps if I pull very hard – your dress is ripped anyhow – you stay here, and I will fetch Miss Taylor for you.”
Emma was fond of this pale pink frock, but she supposed there was sense in his suggestion. “Oh, very well. Do what you must, but I hope you will think twice about wearing these cufflinks again.”
“I shall never wear them again – and I will happily pay to replace your lovely gown, Miss Woodhouse. Now, I am going to pull very hard – brace yourself so that I do not topple you over.”
Emma rested her hands on his opposite shoulder as she prepared for him to jerk his hand free from her dress.
She did indeed stagger as he swung his arm backward, obliging her to cling to him as she lost her balance.
The loud rip of her dress was not the only sound, though, as she felt a wave of panic wash over her.
“Emma, are you in here?” John Knightley stepped into the room and halted abruptly. He had been dancing with Miss Elton, who pursued him into the dark little room, where Emma was presently in Mr. Bingley’s arms with the front of her dress torn apart.
Miss Elton lifted a candle from a nearby sconce and stepped into the room, illuminating the damning tableau. She gasped. “La! What a compromising pose!”
John scowled as he took the candle from Miss Elton, holding it a away from Emma and Mr. Bingley as they scrambled to right themselves. “Emma, what is the meaning of this?”
When Emma looked up at John, she saw with horror that everyone else who had been dancing now came behind him to peer into the room. Mr. Weston and Mr. Darcy looked aghast. Miss Taylor seemed as if she would faint, and she staggered backward into Mr. Weston.
Jane turned to Miss Taylor and tugged at her shawl; with a look of understanding, Miss Taylor relinquished it, and Jane pushed past the others to come forward and cover Emma.
Smiling feebly, Emma reached up and rested a hand atop Jane’s as her friend adjusted the shawl to ensure that the large and revealing rip was concealed.
Miss Taylor quickly came to join them and took Emma’s free hand. “My dear, what happened?”
“It is all my own fault – a foolish accident,” Mr. Bingley said. He stepped more fully into the light and displayed his idiotic cufflinks as he explained the mishap.
“It is just as he says,” Emma agreed, her face burning with shame.
Miss Bates’s voice cut through the crowded little room. “Jane? Whatever is going on in there? Is someone injured?”
To this, Mr. Woodhouse now cried out in alarm. “Emma? Where is Emma? Who is injured?”
“Emma is injured?” Isabella’s voice was shrill as she stopped playing; a moment later she rushed into the room. “What has happened? Mr. Bingley, why do you look so strange?”
“He compromised Miss Woodhouse,” Miss Elton cried, laughing gaily.
“Surely not,” Mr. Elton wailed as he joined the fray.
Emma wanted to sink into the ground below her; never had she been so averse to such attention. She looked imploringly at Miss Taylor and Jane Fairfax. “This is madness!”
“Emma,” Isabella hissed, pulling away Miss Taylor’s shawl to reveal the great tear down the front of Emma’s gown. “Mr. Bingley, you shall have to explain yourself to my father!”
Mr. Bingley let out a loud groan, and Mr. Darcy shook his head at his friend. “I told you those cufflinks were absurd.”
“How very helpful,” Jane whispered.
Emma looked at her in wild desperation, hardly knowing how to extricate herself from this ghastly ordeal. Jane Fairfax, who had always been so much better than her at everything, to Emma’s infinite annoyance – Jane Fairfax was now to be her champion.
Jane frowned at Isabella as she again covered the torn front of Emma’s gown with the shawl. “I think everybody unconnected to Miss Woodhouse ought to leave the room immediately; it is hardly appropriate to gawk at her perfectly innocent mishap.”
“Perfectly innocent, eh?” John shook his head. “Bingley, I gave you the hint about your manor, but that was not an invitation to my sister.”
Mr. Bingley went pale as he began to stammer, and then he fell silent as Mr. Woodhouse came into the room. Isabella fluttered over to him in a state of hysterics. “Father, he has nearly ripped Emma’s dress off! I am sure they shall have to marry!”
Emma looked over at Mr. Bingley, who only blinked stupidly, and then at Jane, who displayed all the indignation Emma was too stunned to feel herself. She felt dizzy for a moment, her body suddenly felt very heavy, and then the room went dark.
***
When Emma again opened her eyes she was in an unfamiliar bedroom.
It was cold, though a fire had been lit.
She was laid back on a plush mattress, supported by half a dozen pillows.
She slowly sat up and looked around; in a chair beside the bed, Jane Fairfax looked up from a book.
“How do you feel? Would you like another cold cloth to the brow?”
“Another?” Emma shook her head in confusion. “Am I still at Randalls? How long have I been here?”
“It has only been ten minutes, Emma. I offered to stay with you.”
“I suppose the party is over.”
“Oh, it is quite finished,” Jane said with a rueful smile.
“Mr. Knightley began evicting Mr. Weston’s guests the moment you fainted.
Mr. Elton and his sister seemed loathe to leave a scene of such fascination, but they are gone, and Mr. Knightley stormed off looking like the very devil! I think he had words with his brother.”
Emma gasped and Jane bit her lip as if she regretted revealing this detail. “And the others?”
“Miss Taylor went to Hartfield to fetch you a new frock. Your father begged Mr. Weston to go and summon Mr. Perry to attend to you at once, though Mr. Weston is chagrined that he must admit to hosting a party to which the good doctor was not invited. Happily, our kind host had prepared a guest room, hoping his son might occupy it; he made it available for your use. In his library, your relations are speaking to Mr. Bingley, who has asked Mr. Darcy to remain with him. Between the tearing of your gown and your swooning into Mr. Bingley’s arms – well, your father and sister have been worked into a state of… intense consideration.”
Though Jane put it gently, Emma knew what she meant. Dread swelled in her chest, then gave way to mortification and remorse. “And you stayed with me?”
Emma scarcely recognized her own feeble voice.
She scarcely recognized Jane Fairfax, either.
She had often been unkind to her, or at least ungenerous.
She had sometimes mocked Jane’s letters to Miss Bates, in private conversations with Miss Taylor, and had even lamented that her imagined rival should be so well-travelled and prone to excelling at every endeavor.
She had neither attempted nor deserved any friendship with Jane Fairfax, and yet Jane had been a true friend to her tonight.
“I thought it would be very wrong to leave you, until Miss Taylor returns – surely then she shall be a better consolation to you. Mr. Knightley conveyed my moth- my grandmother and my aunt home to the cottage. I suppose somebody will make me a similar offer when everything is settled.”
“No – no, you must stay – that is, if you wish it – you might return to Hartfield with us. I should take heart from your company, if my relations are to… decide my fate.” Emma covered her face in her hands, curling her knees into her chest, and she let out a prolonged groan of dismay at her situation.
Jane moved from the chair; the bed dipped as she perched beside Emma and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I did tell them it was all a misunderstanding – surely Mr. Bingley will explain himself.”
“Is my father very agitated?”
Emma looked up fearfully, and Jane’s jaw set in a grim line. “Do not distress yourself further. Can I get you anything? Tea, perhaps, or wine?”
Emma shook her head. “I only wish to know the worst – I think they shall make him marry me. That is what is commonly done, is it not? Else I shall be ruined.”
“That is the stuff of novels,” Jane said. “I cannot guess how your father will act; I understand he is not a stern and imposing man.”
“No, but John is a barrister – he has made a career of arguing,” Emma sighed.
“But is not Mr. Bingley his friend?”
“That would only influence him in favor of forcing the matter,” Emma sighed. She hung her head, letting out another pitiful moan.
“Mr. Bingley seems a good man, at least.” Jane’s eyes sparkled with mischief, and she leaned closer as she whispered, “I once turned down an offer of marriage. An exceedingly dim-witted, unaccountably pompous parson of profoundly repellent appearance once made me an offer. I was obliged to refuse him twice, as he did not believe me the first time. My guardian found it all exceedingly diverting, though he was obliged to turn the fellow out of the house, an exertion he did not enjoy at all.”
Emma laughed. “Jane, I believe Mr. Darcy must be right – you are full of secrets!”
“Did he say that?”
“He asked me many questions about you while we were dancing. I had thought he was concerned that his friend took a fancy to you, but….” Emma shuddered. It would be a disaster if she were made to marry Mr. Bingley, and he really preferred Jane Fairfax!
“I daresay he has styled himself Mr, Bingley’s protector – he is with him even now,” Jane said; her gaze clouded with worry for a minute, but then she roused herself.
“Distraction is what we are wanting, is it not? It will hardly do to dwell on what need not yet worry us. Here I have a book of riddles – shall I read a few of them to you?”
Emma agreed, and they passed another quarter hour without any further mention of the present predicament.
Jane made Emma laugh a few times, and put her so at ease that she was smiling brightly when Miss Taylor returned with a new gown for her.
No sooner had she put it on then Mr. Weston returned with the doctor, who examined her and declared that she was only in want of rest, and perhaps a measure of brandy to calm her nerves.
When Mr. Perry departed, Miss Taylor poured a small glass of brandy for all three of them, and the ladies all sat on the bed together, nervously awaiting the verdict. They lapsed into silence, their brandy all gone before Miss Taylor finally spoke.
“Emma, you mean to make a match with me and Mr. Weston….”
“Yes?”
“Well, that would mean my leaving Hartfield. It would be just you and your father, unless….”
“Unless what? Oh! You mean… I should marry Mr. Bingley?”
“Well, I daresay your father might benefit from another man around the house to oversee certain matters. And he does seem like a kind man; he would hardly mistreat you – I daresay his company would even be amusing, and entirely pleasant.”
Emma gaped at her governess turned companion, utterly shocked by this counsel. “But I have always thought never to marry.”
Miss Taylor smiled sadly at her. “But if it cannot be helped… I only mean to remind you that it would not be so terrible.”
Jane retrieved the decanter of brandy and filled their glasses. Emma looked beseechingly at her. “I thought he fancied you – and you him. It would be awkward….”
“Not at all,” Jane said emphatically. “I can assure you in perfect honesty that I have no thoughts of marriage at present, truly. Indeed, as I danced with Mr. Bingley, I resolved to give him no encouragement, and before he became entangled with you, I had been singing your praises.”
Emma laughed. “After I told you he is not for me!”
“Well, he is not for me, either! After all, he does not improve his mind through extensive reading ,” Jane cried, again mocking Mr. Darcy’s stoic mien.
A bubble of laughter escaped Emma’s lips as she sipped her brandy, and her choking caused her companions to laugh along with her. “Lord, imagine if it had been Mr. Darcy! I should have expired immediately, and then I would not be in this mess!”
The door creaked open, and Isabella entered with a grimace. “Emma,” she hissed. “What are you laughing about, at such a time? You have nearly ruined yourself!”
Isabella wore a thunderous look as she dismissed Miss Taylor and Jane Fairfax from the room. She proceeded to lecture Emma at length, and demanded that she agree to marry Mr. Bingley.
“Your reputation is not the only one in jeopardy,” Isabella insisted. “I am to inherit Hartfield someday. My children will grow up here! What of our standing in the community, with a ruined sister and aunt? I cannot allow that – I shall not!”
After a lengthy airing of her grievances against Emma’s willfulness and flippancy, Isabella finally prevailed.
Mr. Bingley had, at the behest of his imposing friend, expressed his willingness and readiness to capitulate to what the situation and the family demanded.
And after wearying of her sister’s histrionics, Emma relented as well.
She would become Emma Bingley, the wife of a tradesman and mistress of a nameless manor – unless, for some reason, Mr. Bingley perchance changed his mind… .