These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of
a great deal of snow on the ground did her further
service, for any thing was welcome that might justify
their all three being quite asunder at present.
The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas
Day, she could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse
would have been miserable had his daughter attempted
it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting
or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas.
The ground covered with snow, and the atmosphere in
that unsettled state between frost and thaw, which
is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise,
every morning beginning in rain or snow, and every
evening setting in to freeze, she was for many days
a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse with
Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on
Sunday any more than on Christmas Day; and no need
to find excuses for Mr. Elton’s absenting himself.
It was weather which might fairly confine every body
at home; and though she hoped and believed him to
be really taking comfort in some society or other,
it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied
with his being all alone in his own house, too wise
to stir out; and to hear him say to Mr. Knightley,
whom no weather could keep entirely from them,—
“Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay
at home like poor Mr. Elton?”
These days of confinement would have been, but for
her private perplexities, remarkably comfortable,
as such seclusion exactly suited her brother, whose
feelings must always be of great importance to his
companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared
off his ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness
never failed him during the rest of his stay at Hartfield.
He was always agreeable and obliging, and speaking
pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes
of cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay,
there was still such an evil hanging over her in the
hour of explanation with Harriet, as made it impossible
for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease.
Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long
at Hartfield. The weather soon improved enough
for those to move who must move; and Mr. Woodhouse
having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to
stay behind with all her children, was obliged to see
the whole party set off, and return to his lamentations
over the destiny of poor Isabella;—which
poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated
on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and
always innocently busy, might have been a model of
right feminine happiness.
The evening of the very day on which they went brought
a note from Mr. Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil,
ceremonious note, to say, with Mr. Elton’s best
compliments, “that he was proposing to leave
Highbury the following morning in his way to Bath;
where, in compliance with the pressing entreaties of
some friends, he had engaged to spend a few weeks,
and very much regretted the impossibility he was under,
from various circumstances of weather and business,
of taking a personal leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose
friendly civilities he should ever retain a grateful
sense— and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands,
should be happy to attend to them.”
