Read Online Emma in Love by Emma Tennant - Free Book Online

of youthful voices, singing in unison.
    â€œWhy, it is the ‘
pont d’Avignon
’,” cried Harriet. “I amso very partial to that song, Mrs. Knightley. It does make me wish Mr. Martin would want to travel abroad – like Mr. Knightley once did—”
    Emma frowned; and had her poor little friend dared, she would have said she scowled. References to Mr. Knightley’s aptitude for travel as a young man were, it seemed, as unwelcome as the proposition that the Baroness d’Almane visit Emma’s school. Not for the first time since the occasion of their marriages four years ago, Harriet reflected that there was a quality she might call static, had the idea or the term been known to her, in Emma and in her union with Mr. Knightley. Why did she not wish to gallivant somewhere abroad with her husband – they had not even taken a wedding journey of any adventurous nature, having waited until it was possible to leave Mr. Woodhouse for but a fortnight’s absence, and then for a tour of the seaside! Even this short journey became impossible, when Mr. Woodhouse’s chicken house was broken into and several of his fowls taken. Mr Knightley and his bride were needed at home. There was no change to be noted at the Abbey, either: Emma had gone from a house unaltered since the death of her mother, to the permanence of Donwell Abbey. Harriet wondered if she knew she was in a different phase of life, now, to the one she had enjoyed as Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield. Mr. Knightley was no more – and no less – than a father to her, in reality.
    Such were Harriet’s thoughts and musings, though her fear and admiration for her friend would not have permitted her to sum them up thus. Perfection was Mrs. Knightley of Donwell: it was only on occasions such as this one that a glimmer of suspicion entered the young countrywoman’s mind, the suspicion being that Emma was altogether too rigorous in the application of her moral and practical code; and should enjoy herself sometimes, with the sense of mischief she so frequently demonstrated in the days before marriage to Mr. Knightley.
    As for Emma, she seemed to think of the music and singing from her old home as almost a sacrilege; and it was only after Harriet Martin cajoled her, that she resolved to stay where she was, despite the wind and its irresistible message from France. “You are so very accomplished, dear Mrs. Knightley – you have brought your crayons all the way here and everyone awaits your delightful sketch … Why, since you last sat here, the copper beech is down in the storm and there is an entirely new prospect, across the village. We all await your rendering of it, Mrs. Knightley!”
    Harriet cried out that the wind brought the hour, in the chimes of the church clock by the Vicarage – that it was grown far later than she had dreamed it to be – that dear Robert awaited her, and she had promised him a shepherd’s pie for his midday meal.
    â€œI must fly, Mrs. Knightley. You will promise to show me your delightful sketch when it is done? Oh, look who comes! What a strange coincidence: were we not talking of him this morning as we walked here, though I believe we spoke of Jane Fairfax’s French companion more. They say she was abducted, you know – I wished to inform you—”
    Emma looked out across the shrubbery, her sensation being that of the listener to tales of imagined beings – Odysseus, maybe, or the hunter Actaeon on his pursuit of the fair Diana – who then sees that mythical being appear in the landscape before him. Her crayon was poised. The background to the picture became of a sudden a great deal more interesting than before; and as the foreground of the anticipated sketch now grew in appeal with the approach of the figure on horseback, she felt all the unexpectedness of gratitude, that she had not gone down to Hartfield to complain of the noise.
    A Frenchwoman