Mr. Knightley’s Diary

I did not know what to think. Was she serious? Or just bearing up under her misfortune? Had she ever been in love with him, or not? I thought of everything I had seen between them. I had never been sure. Her spirits had always been lively, and what I had taken for romantic flirtation might have been nothing but high spirits. I did not know what to think, much less what to say. But I did not need to speak. She went on, telling me that she had been pleased by his attentions because he was the son of Mr. Weston; because he was continually in Highbury; because she found him very pleasant; and, she admitted, in a way no other woman would have admitted it, because her vanity was flattered.

"He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me," she said.

I felt a rush of relief. Emma, my Emma, was not hurt; not wounded, not injured. She was cheerful still.

I felt my own cheerfulness return. In fact, I was so much in charity with the world that I could even find it in my heart to be charitable to Frank Churchill.

"Perhaps he may yet turn out well," I said. "With such a woman he has a chance. I have no motive for wishing him ill - and for her sake, whose happiness will be involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him well."

"I have no doubt of their being happy together," said Emma, as we walked on. "I believe them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached."

Lucky, lucky man to have the love of the woman he loved!

"He is a most fortunate man!" I burst out. "Every thing turns out for his good. He meets with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even weary her by negligent treatment - and had he and all his family sought round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found her superior. His aunt is in the way. His aunt dies. He has only to speak. His friends are eager to promote his happiness. He has used everybody ill - and they are all delighted to forgive him.

He is a fortunate man indeed!"

Emma said: "You speak as if you envied him."

"And I do envy him, Emma," I said. "In one respect he is the object of my envy."

Because he had won the woman he loved.

She said nothing. I was afraid I had gone too far. If I spoke of my feelings for her, would I lose her friendship? We could never go back to the comfortable ease we had had before. Could I really bear to lose that?

She seemed about to speak, but I had to say something before I lost my courage; before I decided I had too much to lose and could not take the risk.

"You will not ask me what is the point of envy," I said. "You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity. You are wise - but I cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment."

"Oh! then, do not speak it, do not speak it," she eagerly cried. "Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself."

"Thank you," I said, mortified that my attentions were so unwelcome to her. But how could they not be? I was so much older than she, and I had never flattered her as a lover ought. I had scolded her and berated her. I was the last man in the world she would wish to marry. And so, generous girl that she was, she sought to spare me the pain of being refused.

We walked on in silence. We reached the house.

"You are going in, I suppose," I said.

And so it ended. My hope of marrying her.

She hesitated, and then she surprised me by saying: "No. I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not gone."

We walked on. I felt her preparing herself to say something she found difficult.

She is going to tell me she knows of my feelings, and she is going to put paid to them once and for all, I thought.

"Mr. Knightley, I stopped you just now, and I am afraid, gave you pain," she said. "But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation - as a friend, indeed, you may command me. I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think."

"As a friend!" I said, and my heart quailed. But I could not say nothing now that I had a chance to speak to her. Perhaps I could convince her that I could change; that I could stop scolding her; that I could become a man she would be proud to marry. "Emma, that I fear is a word..." I began, but stopped. I could not say I was not her friend, because I was. But I wanted to be so much more. I resolved to be silent; not to jeopardize what I had. But I could not. "I have gone too far already for concealment. Emma, I accept your offer, extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend. Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?"

I turned to look at her, and my love for her was in my eyes.