"Harriet Smith prepares to marry Robert Martin. I have it from Robert Martin himself. He told me not half an hour ago."
I thought she did not like it, and I said as much, but she replied: "You mistake me. I never was more surprised - but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you. How - how has it been possible?"
I told her everything, and she made no reply.
"Emma, my love, I know you think of his situation as an evil; but you must consider it as what satisfies your friend; and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight you. As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend in better hands."
I was relieved to learn that she had been silent only from surprise.
"You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think Harriet is doing extremely well. Her connections may be worse than his. I have been silent from surprise merely, excessive surprise. You cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! How peculiarly unprepared I was! For I had reason to believe her very lately more determined against him, much more, than she was before."
"You ought to know your friend best," I said, "but I should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her."
It is a happy conclusion to the affair, and Emma sees it quite as well as I do.
Friday 6 August
As Emma and I walked in the garden at Hartfield this morning we were talking of Harriet again, and Emma laughed, saying: "Only Harriet could be in love thrice in one year."
"Thrice?" I asked. "Mr. Elton and Mr. Martin are but two men."
She coloured, but then said saucily: "I see I must tell you all. I am very much afraid that, until recently, Harriet was in love with you."
"Me?" I asked, astonished.
"You need not be so surprised. You are a very easy man to fall in love with. I have managed it myself without any difficulty."
I smiled and pulled her hand through my arm.
"But Harriet…I cannot believe it. I gave her no encouragement. I barely spoke to her!" I said.
"You saved her from humiliation when you asked her to dance, and you singled her out at the Abbey, asking her if her affections were engaged."
"The first was an act of charity, the second - she did not think I was asking if she was attached to me?"
"Yes, she did."
"But I was thinking of Robert Martin! I wanted to know if she was still in love with him."
"So I hoped, but she was adamant that nothing had been further from your mind - or hers. And then you sat with her at Hartfield just before you went to London, the day after Box Hill. She distinctly remembered you saying you could not stay for five minutes, but then you stayed with her for half an hour."
"That is because I was waiting for you."
"So I hoped..."
"You hoped?"
"When Harriet told me she was in love with you, and she was sure her feelings were returned - that is when I knew I loved you. I told her she must be mistaken, but she gave so many proofs of your affection, I thought it must be true. I was thinking of it as I walked in the garden when you returned from London, and it was at the forefront of my mind as you said you had something to tell me."
"You thought…" I began in surprise. "You cannot mean to say that you thought I was about to talk of Harriet?"
"Yes. I thought you were about to tell me that you were in love with her."
"So that is why you looked so sad."
"I thought I had lost you. I had spent so long meddling with other people’s hearts, I had neglected my own."
"So when I spoke, and you tried to silence me…"
"…it was because I could not bear to hear you say that you intended to marry Harriet. But I realized that, as a friend, I could not refuse to listen, and so I said you might speak. And then you said that you loved me."
"Oh, Emma," I said.
Words failed me, and so I abandoned them, and kissed her. It felt so right that I kissed her again. And then again.
Tuesday 10 August
John has arrived from London with his family, and Harriet has returned with them. When I called on Emma this afternoon, she had spoken to her friend, and after a little awkwardness on each side, they had congratulated each other with a warm and sincere affection.
Emma has invited Robert Martin to call on her, and I am sure he will be happy to accept the invitation.
Thursday 12 August
Robert Martin called at Hartfield today, and Emma was delighted to meet him. Harriet was as happy as it is possible for a woman to be, and Robert’s happiness, I do believe, approached my own.
Harriet’s father has been discovered at last. Mrs. Goddard revealed his name to Mr. Martin, and Harriet now knows she is the natural daughter of a tradesman. Robert Martin has applied to him, and he has given his consent to the marriage.
Autumn will be a season of weddings!
September
Friday 10 September
Emma and I have decided to marry whilst Isabella and John are still here. It will allow Emma and me to go to the seaside for a fortnight after the wedding, and we will not have to worry about leaving Mr. Woodhouse alone. As Harriet is marrying in a few weeks" time, and Churchill is marrying in November, we have settled on October. John and Isabella approve the plan; so do the Westons. But we still have to get Mr. Woodhouse’s consent.
Emma said, this evening: "Papa, Mr. Knightley and I have decided to marry in October. Then you can have a quiet fortnight with Isabella and John and all the dear little children whilst we are away."
"October!" said he, looking stricken. "But that is next month."
"That is a good thing, Papa," said Isabella, "as it means you will have Mr. Knightley’s company all the sooner."
"But we already have his company. He walks over from the Abbey to see us every day. You had much better not get married, Emma. It will be better if we stay as we are."
He was so troubled that I despaired of ever seeing my wedding-day.
"I cannot marry if it will cause him so much pain," said Emma, when he had retired for the night.
"He will accept it as soon as it is a settled thing," said John. "It is only this indecision that makes him anxious. Tell him the date; go ahead with your plan; and he will accustom himself to it. That is how Isabella and I managed."
But Emma is unhappy, and I hate to see her so.
Monday 13 September
Isabella again tried to reconcile her father to our marriage.
"I will be very pleased to see Emma so well settled," she said.
"Poor Emma!" said her father, with a heavy sigh.
Isabella did not give up, but her father was not any more sanguine as she continued to talk of the marriage. He did not oppose it; indeed he talked about it as though it was a settled thing; but in such a drooping tone of voice that Emma said to me, after dinner, that she thought we should abandon the plan, at least for the moment.
I rallied her spirits, but she could not proceed. She took no interest in the arrangements, and said at last that, if it was going to make her father so unhappy, she could not do it.
I talked to John and Isabella. John felt we should go ahead, and that when it was done, we would hear no more sighs; and Isabella said she wanted her sister to know the happiness she herself had known. But Emma was firm. She felt that her father had had to suffer one marriage already, that of Mrs. Weston, and that he had been made anxious by the news of two more, so that to force him to confront a third, and one so near to home, was a cruelty she could not bring herself to inflict on him.