For some reason, I did not like to hear her praising him.

"He can sit down and write a fine flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, if that is what you mean by a complying disposition," I said scathingly, for she seemed to think very well of a man she had never met. "His letters disgust me."

She looked surprised at the strength of my feeling, but why should I not have strong feelings?

"You seem determined to think ill of him," she said.

"Not at all. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal; that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners."

"Well, if he should have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure at Highbury," she said mischievously. "We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the bargain."

"If I find him conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance," I remarked disdainfully, "but if he is only a chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts."

"My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of everybody, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally agreeable."

"And mine is, that if he turn out anything like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing!"

I said irascibly.

"I will say no more about him," cried Emma, "you turn everything to evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no chance of agreeing "til he is really here."

"Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced," I exclaimed, although I knew, even as I said it, that I was.

"But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it," she said. "My love for Mr. and Mrs.

Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour."

"He is a person I never think of from one month’s end to another," I remarked with vexation.

But, in fact, I did not speak the truth. For some reason, I have taken a dislike to Frank Churchill, and I do not want Emma to like him, either.

It is a good thing Churchill has put off his visit. I find myself wishing he might never come to Highbury at all.


Tuesday 5 January

There was a discrepancy in the accounts, and it took me all afternoon to trace it and correct it, so I was glad to go to my whist club this evening. It was an escape from the irritations at Hartfield and the annoyances at the Abbey.

Once there, I found that a new subject of conversation had arisen, and one that had thankfully put Frank Churchill out of everyone’s mind.

"This is good news," said Otway, when I entered the Crown. "Jane Fairfax is to visit her aunt and grandmother. I have not seen Miss Fairfax for years. A taking little thing she was, when she was a girl. She will be a young woman now, of an age with Miss Woodhouse."

"It will be good for the two of them to have each other. Mrs. Weston is very pleased," said Weston.

"And so am I," I said. At last, Emma will have some refined company. After the disappointments of recent weeks, I hope she will value it for what it is worth. And I…perhaps I will find what I have been looking for. "Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see Miss Fairfax and Emma become friends."

"It’s a sad situation," said Cole. "Poor girl. It was very good of Colonel Campbell to raise her when her parents died..."

"A lot of men would have conveniently forgotten that Jane’s father had saved their life," agreed Weston.

" - or regarded it as a duty to do something for the infant, making a contribution to their upkeep, perhaps, but nothing more," said Cole. "But not Colonel Campbell."

"I suppose he thought he might as well take her in, having a girl of his own. It gave both children a playmate, his daughter being an only child."

"I dare say that played its part, but it was still good of him to give Jane a home and all the benefits of an education."

"Something her aunt could not have afforded," agreed Weston.

"But it is a double-edged kindness," I said. "Now that Miss Fairfax is a woman, she has to earn a living. It will not be easy for her to move from a world in which she has had a great deal of pleasure, to one in which she will be little better than a servant."

"I would like to help her, but what can we do?" asked Cole.

"Nothing but make her welcome in Highbury, where we can show her the attentions she deserves, and make her feel that here there will always be a place for her," said Weston.

As he spoke, I thought that I might be able to do something more.


Tuesday 12 January

Business brought me to town, and after it was concluded, I dined with my friend Routledge at the club.

"What news from Highbury?" he asked.

I began by telling him about the Abbey and the farms, and then we talked of my neighbours. I told him about Mr. Longridge and Mrs. Lovage.

"Mrs. Lovage?" he asked.

"She is Graham’s sister, and she has been to stay with him several times."

"Does her husband not object?" he asked. "He seems to be unusually compliant if he allows her to stay with her brother so often - unless, of course, he goes, too?"

"She is a widow."

"Ah, I see. It is a recent bereavement? Is that why she stays so often with her brother? She is in need of consolation, I suppose."

"Not so very recent. Her husband has been dead for five years. She stays with her brother because she enjoys his company, not because she is grieving."

"I see. She is old, I take it? Graham must be thirty-five, so his sister is about forty, I collect, with several children?"

"Forty!" I said. "She is no such thing. She is his younger sister, and cannot be more than seven-or eight-and-twenty. As for children, I have never heard them mentioned."

"I believe you said she was ugly?"

"No, she is rather beautiful," I remarked. "In fact, she is very beautiful."

"And?"

"And what?"

"And, if she is a young and beautiful widow, who is the sister of your friend, have you not thought of marrying her?" he asked.

"Yes," I admitted. "I have. But I could not bring myself to think of her in that way. She would always be wanting to go to Brighton, or Bath, or London, or Weymouth, and I like to spend my time in Highbury."

"That is the worst reason for not marrying a woman I have ever come across! You surprise me,

Knightley. I did not think you would be so easily defeated. Surely some agreement could be reached?"

"If I loved her, yes. But I have no feelings for her. I did not miss her when she returned to Bath for a spell and that told me that she was not important to me."

"Why should you, indeed? You had plenty to do. You could not be expected to pine for her like a lovesick schoolboy."

"I was never a lovesick schoolboy. The notion of love, in my youth, struck me as ridiculous, but I always miss Emma when I am away from Highbury, no matter how much I have to do."

"Do you?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Yes, I do. I often resent an evening spent in London, because I cannot walk over to Hartfield after dinner and discuss the day’s news."

"And is there no one else you have seen who might interest you? No woman who has caught your fancy, or entertained you, or intrigued you?"

"My brother has introduced me to several young ladies, but the idea of an evening with one of them is not as enticing to me as the idea of five minutes with Emma," I said shortly.

"And have you met no great beauties?"

"A few. But I prefer to look at Emma."

"And what does all this tell you?" he asked me,

"That I have not yet met the right woman, and that there is no use my marrying unless I find someone I like as well as Emma," I said.

He laughed, though I did not know why. There was nothing very amusing in what I had said.

"I have a feeling you will be married before the year is out," he told me.

I could not agree with him, but for the sake of peace I did not contradict him and our conversation moved on to other things.


Friday 15 January

I returned home from London, and spent the evening at Hartfield. I enjoyed myself so thoroughly that I was convinced I would be foolish to exchange such company for something less agreeable. I would like to marry, but I would rather remain single than give up my evenings with Emma and her father.


Wednesday 20 January

The new path at the Abbey is proving troublesome. First we could not lay it because of the snow, then because of the flood that followed, and now there is such a thick frost that work cannot go ahead. I would like to have it finished for the spring, and I am chafing at the delay. However, it is only January, and I do not despair of some milder weather soon.

Weston called this morning to discuss a matter of business, and as he was leaving he told me that Miss Fairfax had arrived.

I took the first opportunity to call on Miss Bates, so that I could pay my respects.

Somehow the Bates’s apartment seemed shabbier today than usual, though I could not think why. It was still in the same house, belonging to the same people in business. It still occupied the drawing-room floor. It was still of a moderate size. Mrs. Bates was still sitting in the corner with her knitting, and Miss Bates was still ready to make me welcome.

And then I realized it was because of Miss Fairfax. Whether it was because her presence provided novelty, and therefore made me look at the room anew, or whether it was because everything seemed shabby in comparison with her beauty, I could not say. But shabby it seemed.