Chapter Thirty-Six #2
“You cannot mean to accuse him of scheming with both of the Bingleys,” Charlotte gasped.
“No, I do not doubt it was an accident when Mr. Bingley and I became entangled, and it was that simpering wretch Miss Elton who first discovered us, but I have sometimes wondered if John would have always pushed his friend at me, for he has never taken me seriously when I have declared that I wish never to wed.”
Charlotte came closer and gave Miss Chief a little pat on the snout, her brow furrowed with concern.
“Does this… change anything… between you and Mr. Bingley? He is always full of such praise of you – I think he rather worships you, Emma. I should be sorry to see you finally find an excuse to extricate yourself from a match that I believe might really make you happy.”
“I suppose it would be cruel of me to take such advantage of his sister’s ruin, when I have been scheming against her this whole time,” Emma admitted with a little pout.
She fidgeted uncomfortably and fussed over her spaniel, too mortified to admit to Charlotte that she had come to Milton Hall not to end her engagement, and not even to gossip about the satisfying turn of events that must surely have Jane and Elizabeth in ecstatic raptures, but because her thoughts were all for what Mr. Bingley must be suffering.
Another barrage of screams, sobs, and shattering glass came from the next room; the puppy whimpered and Emma grimaced at what Mr. Bingley was obliged to endure in the effort to reprimand his treacherous sister. “I hope she does not do him any harm – ought we send for Doctor Perry?”
“I think we ought to send for the magistrate and a padded wagon,” Charlotte quipped. “We might also commission a very large statue of Lady Gresham in the center of the village.”
“Oh! She is a marvel,” Emma agreed. “I cannot wait to be properly introduced to her, and thank for her devious intrigue, even if it has not painted John in a very favorable light.”
“You will like her enormously," Charlotte said with a giddy smile.
“Would that I could be like her in a dozen years; she is as bold as anything, and I think it quite charmingly eccentric to be so stylishly dressed while delivering a strategically contrived public set-down. She arrived last evening, and might have had it all out with the Bingleys at once, but she chose her moment well.”
The doors to the music room opened, and Mr. Darcy led his sister out into the parlor, followed by Colonel Fitzwilliam. Emma bobbed into a curtsey and smiled at the girl, who seemed astonishingly young to be a widow. “I hope you are recovered, Mrs. Darcy.”
“I am very well now, thank you.”
“George Wickham was the son of her late father’s steward,” Colonel Fitzwilliam explained. “We had no idea that Miss Bingley was even acquainted with him; he is not the sort of fellow whose acquaintance I would ever recommend to anybody – well, except Miss Bingley, I suppose.”
Mr. Darcy bristled at his cousin’s impudence and, after a few more sounds of disturbance from the parlor where the Bingleys were having their row, he suggested they all take a walk, perhaps in the direction of the village – what he really meant, Emma suspected, was in the direction of Elizabeth Bennet.
Her friend happily accepted, but Emma surprised even herself when she declared that she preferred to wait to speak with Mr. Bingley.
Charlotte gave her a playful, suggestive smirk as she followed Mr. Darcy and his relations out of the house, and Emma was left in the parlor with a sudden, unsettling silence.
For several minutes, nothing happened. She paced the room, petting the pup in her arms, and she finally picked up a scarf draped over a chair, which she recognized as belonging to Miss Bingley.
She knotted it up into a ball and tossed it about to amuse the rowdy spaniel while she waited for Mr. Bingley to safely emerge from the next room.
Finally, he did, and he beamed at the sight of her, his shoulders sagging with exhaustion and relief. “Emma! And Miss Chief! What a pleasure to see you! Have you come to see me?”
“Well, certainly – I feared you might be murdered,” she teased him. His sister quietly crept out of the open doorway behind him, but as Emma watched her, Mr. Bingley turned around and glared at his sister.
“Charles, I….”
“Upstairs, now. Pack your bags.” When Miss Bingley began to protest, even looking desperate enough to appeal to Emma, Mr. Bingley held up a hand to his sister.
“Ah! Not a word, unless it is either Bedford or Scarborough – else I shall choose amongst our aunts on your behalf – they are both odious enough.”
Miss Bingley muttered something instructively uncouth as she stormed off, and Mr. Bingley cast an apologetic shrug at Emma, who asked, “Was it very awful?”
“I think she has thrown every breakable object in the county at me,” he said with a rueful laugh before moving closer to pet the puppy.
“And was it true that she was engaged before? I beg your pardon, but it was astonishing enough that one man agreed to marry her.”
Mr. Bingley chuckled softly. “She claims she broke it off with Wickham before she met Mr. Bennet, but I should be the worst sort of blackguard to inflict such a wife upon him. I did wish her to be happy; the very reason I took up your cause with Miss Bennet and Miss Fairfax was because I never thought my sister suited to him, nor he to her. I wished her to know true love, as I…. Well, and Darcy says this Wickham fellow is rather a wastrel, but I suspect Caroline was genuinely attached to him before her more material inclinations won out. It is a pity, for Caroline in love might have been a side of my sister I should not so easily dismiss.”
“You are too generous with her,” Emma chided him.
“Perhaps I am, but I have every reason to be.”
“Oh?” Emma furrowed her brows, but Mr. Bingley did not answer her.
Instead he briefly retreated into the next room, and when he returned he took the puppy from Emma’s arms and placed Miss Chief on a nearby sofa with the balled up scarf to amuse her.
Only then did Emma realize Mr. Binley held something else in his hand – it was a very small box, the kind which could only contain one thing.
He fidgeted with it for a moment before he finally met her eye.
“I have every reason to be so hopelessly romantic, even to wish my terrifying sister might open her heart.” Mr. Bingley stepped closer to Emma and took her hand in his.
“I may always be a bit of a fool where you are concerned, but I have not been blind – I know you have resented being forced into this engagement. Allow me to release you from the obligation, Miss Woodhouse….”
Emma gasped, a sudden panic rising in her chest, but Mr. Bingley softly placed one finger on her lips to silence her.
“Let us pretend that I was never forced upon you, that I have only been your neighbor and friend, admiring you at every opportunity, awed by your perfection. If that were all there was between us, might I stand any chance of winning your good opinion – winning your heart?”
She broke into a wide smile as Mr. Bingley knelt down and opened the little box, displaying a beautiful silver ring set with delicate diamonds and pearls.
“Emma Woodhouse, will you marry me, freely and of your own choosing? Please say yes; I am madly in love with you and I shall never recover if you refuse me.”
“I will not,” Emma laughed. Mr. Bingley abruptly stood before she could sufficiently express her happiness, and she held her hands out to him.
“I will not refuse you – I cannot, for I have grown far too fond of you. I think I have grown to love you. I am always very happy to see you, and when we are apart I often think of silly japes to share with you, and other ways I might make you smile – and our wretched friend Lizzy has tormented me into thinking lately of what it would be like to kiss you….”
Emma could say no more before Mr. Bingley’s lips were on hers, and her arms instinctively curled about his neck and she let out a startled squeak that soon turned into a sigh of contentment as his mouth moved against hers.
Now that she did know what it was like to kiss him, she doubted she would ever think of anything else…
until she recollected the pretty ring he still held, and she presented her hand for him to place it on her finger.
But once this was done and she had sufficiently admired the sight of this symbol of their love, only another wondrous kiss would please her – and only Mr. Bingley could ever make her as happy as she had been for quite some time already.