Emma never allows Robert Martin to speak. The novel Emma is so fascinating because except for two sections where Knightley takes over and a few other insights, almost everything is perceived by Emma. She doesn't want to know that Robert Martin is a fine choice, so she won't listen. We also do not get to read a word of the "good letter". Emma doesn't let us.
How would we all feel if we got to read that letter? We'd probably like Emma even less!
Five Times “Harriet” Smith opened her big mouth and one time she kept it shut (for a little while anyway)
1.
“She won’t like those,” Harini said, then shut her mouth.
Too late.
Again.
Damn it.
Like, she wasn’t going to get fired over it. But there’d be a super long discussion about customer interface and skill sets and elevation, like elevation meant something more than ski-jumps or lifts to the current clients.
God, she hoped it was Emma who sat her down this time. She was a lot snobbier than Jenner but nodding a lot usually made the talking-to shorter and Emma always brought treats, fancy lattes with foam art and freshly baked cookies from Molland’s, usually something hazelnut, even though Harini didn’t really love hazelnut, Emma just thought she should because it was more elegant. Harini wanted something slathered with chocolate, milk chocolate, not ninety million percent dark, and she’d never say no to a pumpkin spice latte, but free food was free food, especially when she was getting scolded in a way that never failed to end with Emma tapping a manicured finger on her upper lip and congratulating herself for hiring Harini in the first place.
“You have such a unique vision. And an eye—you can’t buy that,” Emma was fond of saying, as if she weren’t sort of buying Harini’s eye (the right or left, Harini always wanted to ask but managed to keep quiet about) with her salary and bennies, which were well above the median for a junior event-planner or floral consultant or whatever Emma had decided was Harini’s current job description.
Emma was hanging on to girlboss for dear life, even though Jenner said it was passé and infantilizing.
Anyway, she was very probably, almost certainly in for it because she couldn’t keep her opinions to herself and she had no freaking excuse this time.
Frederick Wentworth, the Frederick Wentworth, Olympic gold medalist and Stanley Cup winner and Sports Illustrated cover model Frederick Wentworth hadn’t asked or done anything to indicate he wanted her two cents, let alone what she’d given him, which was basically a Loonie.
“Sorry?” he said.
She honestly would have preferred something less considerate, less classically Canadian.
Why couldn’t he have gone all Ilya Rozanov and cursed at her in Russian or something?
“The flowers. Ms. Elliot won’t like the ones you chose. I mean, she will, because you chose them and she loves you, anyone can see it, but she doesn’t like roses that much,” Harini said.
“Anne doesn’t like roses. That much,” he repeated.
“From what I’ve noticed,” Harini hastened to add. It did have the effect of making the Frederick Wentworth, who was a stone-cold hottie and wearing the absolute hell out of the jeans he was in, like Christ, that ass, take a half-step back, like he needed the distance to take a good look at her.
She’d told Emma she was wearing the space buns ironically, when actually, she just thought they were cute and reminded her of Princess Leia who always had a zingy retort whenever anyone gave her any lip.
She regretted the space buns a lot in this moment. She could have a non-descript pageboy or maybe a sleek pixie cut but no, space buns and embroidered cardigan she’d thrifted.
The customer was always right when it was some rando and doubly so when it was Frederick Wentworth, but she had to open her big mouth.
“And you are? Sorry, that sounded rude—”
“Hari—Harriet. Smith,” she said, clumsily switching to the name Emma had advised she use.
Well, the second name. Emma had suggested Araminta, like Harini wanted to be associated with a Georgette Heyer novel, but had backed off when Harini had frowned.
“You’re called Harriet?” he said.
“Here,” she replied.
“What about with your friends? At a bar or coffee-shop or home?” he asked.
“Harini. It means deer, like doe, a deer, a female deer,” she explained, unable to keep the lilt of the song lyrics out of her voice.
Frederick smiled.
“Nice to meet you, Harini. I’m Frederick,” he said.
“I know,” she replied and he laughed.
It was a nice laugh, cheerful and friendly and non-threatening. Ilya Rozanov would have smirked silently and then laughed meanly, at least he would have a while ago, before he and Shane Hollander were officially a thing. Shane also wouldn’t have wanted the roses, but Ilya Rozanov wouldn’t have picked them in the first place.
“So, how do you know Anne won’t want a dozen pink roses for Valentine’s Day?” he said. She’d figured he’d just ask what to get instead of the roses, but evidently he had nothing better to do than ask her a bunch of questions.
“You know Woodhouse|Fairfax does a lot of work for the Darcy Foundation, right?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m the jill of all trades for the agency,” Harini said. As a job description, it had grown on her. Sort of. “This part, the botanical apothecary, I only work here part of the time.”
“Botanical apothecary” for flower shop still sounded like a bunch of BS, but Harini had run with it when it came to explaining to her extended family why she wasn’t getting an engineering degree. She’d never wanted an engineering degree and had wanted to work at a flower shop, maybe have her own one day, so it was a compromise she’d decided to live with, after playing up how well-connected and important the agency was, name-dropping the Darcy Foundation every chance she got.
Frederick looked skeptical.
“I do a lot of the execution. The details. Tying raffia, making corsages. Like, the opposite of the big picture people,” she said.
“Sounds like you should be paid more,” he said.
Now Harini laughed.
“It’s a good job and my bosses are pretty nice. They mean well,” she said.
“Pretty nice and meaning well aren’t the same thing,” he pointed out.
“It’s fine. I’m good. I don’t need to be rescued or anything,” Harini said.
“Okay, but if you did ever, like, I’ve been the person on the outside. The charity kid at the Darcy Foundation,” he said.
He was jacked and down-to-earth and kind. Anne Chan Elliot had gotten herself a winner, even if he didn’t have a clue about flowers.
“Noted,” she said. She liked saying stuff like that because it sounded snappy and professional but not snarky or cold. If Jenner overheard her, she’d start talking about promotions and the wisdom of investing in a quality suit and a killer pair of heels.
Emma would buy the heels for Harini—and a gorgeous pair of suede boots and a Moncler down jacket trimmed with shearling for herself.
“So, what does Anne want? In terms of flowers, I’m not a complete waste as a boyfriend,” Frederick said.
If ever a man was not a complete waste as a boyfriend, it was Frederick Wentworth. He was like a karmic payback for Anne’s career-ending knee injury at the Olympics.
“If you want pink, then peonies. If you’re more open on the color side of things, snapdragons,” Harini said.
“Am I just totally unobservant?” Frederick said.
“No. I asked her one time. Because she’d made it clear she was tired of roses,” Harini said.
“How’d she make it clear?”
“She rolled her eyes when Mr. Darcy talked about how classic roses are,” Harini said.
“That’s my girl,” he said. For a second Harini thought he meant her, Harini, like simply telling him the story was the equivalent of scoring a goal, but his fond smile and the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners made it clear he meant Anne. His girlfriend and soon to be fiancée if what Harini had heard was true.
It was Jenner who’d mentioned it, so it probably was. Emma often got stuff like that wrong, like when she thought Jenner was into Nate Dixon, a lawyer in the offices two floors up from the agency’s suite.
“Peonies, and make it a big bouquet. Big enough she blushes,” he said.
“I’ll have to source those. They’re not going be exactly cheap either,” Harini said.
For a second, she thought he was going to say something like put it on my tab or make a self-deprecating humble-braggy remark about how he could afford it, but she remembered what was most important to him, so she wasn’t totally surprised when he replied.
“She’s worth it.”
2.
“We were supposed to actually read this?” Harini said, waving the fat paperback in her hand.
Or was that her glass of wine?
Shit.
She’d waved both and she’d sloshed the wine out and onto her blouse, which at least was dark and the wine was white, so it wasn’t the most embarrassing it could have been.
“It’s a book club, so yeah. That’s the general idea,” Cath said. She looked a little pissed, as pissed as Cath ever looked, because she’d picked the book and she’d been the one to invite Harini along.
“But it’s so bad,” Harini said.
Lizzy laughed and Anne smiled. There had been some elaborate explanation about how they both knew Cath that Harini hadn’t processed, floored to see them sitting on Cath’s squashy sofa, Cath’s boyfriend’s sister Isabella perched on the couch’s arm. Abbey Donwell, whom Harini knew from undergrad, was sitting in Cath’s rocking chair the way she’d inhabited a corner of the student union, solid, serious and hard to read, except that even she had a grin on her face.
“Fu—fudge,” Harini said, catching herself from cursing in front of two women who weren’t her bosses per se but who employed them, so, like her grand-bosses but without the expectation of doting acceptance grandparents generally conveyed.
Lizzy in particular did not have grandma energy and felt like the cool great-aunt who’d traveled the world and had tons of adventures, some of which were referred to as that time in Tangiers or God, Jakarta.
“It did suck, Cath—sorry,” Lizzy said.
“I gave up after the third chapter,” Isabella said. “Harini’s not wrong—”
“It’s a reboot of a Gothic classic, but they gender-swapped and did some genre mixing, more body horror and cli-fi eco-terror sort of woven in,” Cath said. Protested.
“I can’t deal with lit crit with only pinot grigio,” Abbey said.
“Tequila or gin?” Lizzy said.
“Are there limes?” Abbey asked.
“I brought some. I read most of the book. I figured we’d need something stronger,” Lizzy said.
“Did anyone finish it?” Cath asked.
“I did,” Anne said. She had her feet propped up on an ottoman, wore a big nubbly, slouchy sweater down to her mid thighs and leggings, probably Lululemon, and somehow looked more like herself than when Harini had seen her at work in elegant Audrey Hepburn black and white. The book was resting on her lap, the tassel of a braided bookmark draped over the cover.
“And?”
“I don’t think I’m the right audience for it. I couldn’t really resonate with Udolphina and the merman storyline,” Anne said carefully.
“Let me translate from Anne into English—the book was crap and she probably finished it reading aloud to Freddy and making him laugh his ass off,” Lizzy said.
“Anne?” Cath asked.
“Lizzy’s not wrong. I will say, the chapter where the merman shape-shifts in the bathtub was my favorite,” Anne replied.
“Your favorite?” Abbey said.
“Freddy found it…inspiring,” Anne replied, taking a sip of her wine.
There was a general chorus of thirst-moans, with even Lizzy joining in.
Anne, sweet, gentle, kind Anne, had a devilish expression in her dark eyes when she extended her wineglass.
“Top off, and then let’s talk about something else,” she said.
“There is no way we are letting go of the opportunity to talk about you getting Freddy into your bathtub and the merman roleplay you obviously got him to agree to,” Lizzy said, raising her own mostly empty glass towards Harini. In a toast?
“To Harini, who has made book club fun! Huzzah!”
*
“Poutine’s disgusting,” Harini said.
Aloud.
To her host, who had just put a steaming dish heaping with the aforementioned poutine at the center of the table.
Crap.
Emma, who had insisted Harini come with her, glared as glare-y a glare at Harini as had ever been glared before rearranging her face in apologetic winsomeness; somehow, the silk scarf she had artfully tied around her neck accentuated the winsomeness.
Emma opened her mouth and Harini jumped in.
“If you didn’t grow up with it. Eating it, I mean. Which I didn’t,” she said right as Emma said, “It looks delicious!” and George, Emma and Jenner’s usually silent partner, said, “More for me then.”
An shrugged, an elegant gesture. She had the kind of interesting face that made Harini wish she could draw.
“It was West’s idea. I’m not a big fan myself, but he loves it and he said George did too. Don’t feel you have to eat any of it, Harini,” she said, pointing to her husband West, a hearty ruddy-cheeked man who might easily have been on a vintage poster for the Mounties.
“I’m indulging tonight,” Emma said, using a serving spoon to ladle a sizable portion onto her plate.
Separate from the whole, the poutine looked no better to Harini, all the worst shades of brown in unremarkable shapes. She couldn’t help feeling like it might move on its own. She wished she had a full glass of wine to glug down, but she’d already finished what she had and didn’t want to ask and underscore her desire to get drunk.
Maybe then she’d understand why Emma had made it seem necessary for her to come to this dinner.
George somehow glanced at her and divined everything.
“Let’s you and I finish this bottle off, then An can open the one I brought,” George said, pouring her a generous amount and leaving himself a fairly measly glass of the Shiraz Emma brought.
“Okay,” Harini said.
“Elham’s not coming then?” Emma asked, directing the question at An, but not taking care to make it inaudible to everyone else.
Harini pursed her lips. Elham was a photographer who did freelance work with the Darcy Foundation and showed his more avant-garde work in An’s gallery. Emma had decided he would be a perfect match for Harini “because you are both creatives!” while Harini was fairly sure it was because Emma saw them as the people most like each other that she had encountered and by most like, she meant, least Anglo and also single, but Elham was good-looking and some of his shots had a spiritual aesthetic Harini found appealing as she did a calla lily, which was some of the time. Never in winter.
Anyway, it was now apparent why Harini had been invited and why she was a fifth wheel.
“I wondered what you thought of Fleurs de Villes,” George remarked.
It was the perfect question for Harini and perfectly George, to ask something she would enjoy answering so much. He couldn’t possibly be interested and she was about to say that, probably gauchely, when he spoke again.
“I’m interested, but not if it’s a busman’s holiday for you,” he said.
She’d never heard the expression before but she got the jist.
He was the most considerate man she’d ever met.
(And let’s face it, easy on the eyes.)
4.
“Maybe he’s just not that into you. François,” Harini said, unnecessarily clarifying the man she was pretty sure wasn’t that into Emma, who was still, at the end of the day, her boss.
Yikes.
And goddamn it.
She’d been doing so well.
“His loss. Like, he’s a seven and you’re a ten,” Harini hurried to add. She did the calculation quickly—Emma obviously had to be a ten but François couldn’t be either too close to ten or too low, because either way risked offending her.
Though Emma looked less offended and more perplexed and hurt. Hurplexed?
Harini thought François was a seven point six but she wasn’t about to introduce decimals.
“He’s had explanations every time he cancels,” Emma said.
“Yeah, but they’re not like, good ones,” Harini said.
“His aunt raised him. She’s like a second mother to him,” Emma said. This was a much shorter version of the heart of François’s common excuses, how he had to take care of his aunt, some detail about whatever beset her and why only he could solve the problem then some yadda yadda emojis Emma spent far too long ascribing deeper meaning to, the meaning always that Emma was his true love and he was heart-broken not to be with her and also, that he thought she was smoking hot.
“His aunt has to be the unluckiest and most injury-prone woman in Quebec according to his ‘explanations,’” Harini said. “And yet, whenever you run into him, he’s out and about, living his best life without a care in the world.”
“It’s important to give people grace, Harini. And to assume best intentions,” Emma replied.
“I was trying to do that. When I said maybe he wasn’t that into you. If he really is into you, he’s doing a crummy job of showing it,” Harini said.
She didn’t get paid for over-time. It wasn’t that kind of job.
It was the kind of job where she heard all about François but also, her big mouth didn’t get her fired.
“You’re hard on him,” Emma said.
“You’re not. George would never treat anyone that way. Especially not someone he was into,” Harini said. She’d said it without thinking, but it was true. As her words sort of floated in the air, Harini thought of all the times she’s seen George be kind and thoughtful, how he made every potentially awkward social situation easy by saying or doing something disarming. How he’d eaten all that poutine and Harini hadn’t felt like a fool, how he thanked her for passing along messages to Emma. Whenever he came to the office, he made sure Harini was included in the conversation, the serious parts and the messing around, even if George messing around was sometimes weird because he was on the far side of thirty and occasionally reminded Harini of her grandpa.
“Well, you can’t go by George,” Emma retorted.
She had a weird proprietary way of pronouncing his name, which was a feat for one syllable. Harini wasn’t sure what it meant, except that it meant something, and she was pretty sure Emma wasn’t sure either, based on the look in her eyes which had nothing to do with her expertly applied liner and mascara and perfect smoky eye.
Harini stuck with some kohl and a little lip-gloss.
“Why not?”
“Because George—he doesn’t, I mean—he’s always, you can’t expect—it’s just George,” Emma said incoherently.
Anyone would say she was incoherent.
Harini wasn’t being judgy.
“Okay, whatever. George isn’t a fair comparison. But I don’t think Mr. Darcy would flake out like François does. Or Frederick Wentworth. Or Charlie Bingley. Or—”
Emma held up one manicured hand that had not arranged a bouquet in literally the past four years.
“I get it. Point made. It’s only—there aren’t a lot of guys I like. Whom I find…appealing,” Emma said.
Appealing in this context meant that Emma wanted both to talk to the guy and sleep with him. With some borderline inappropriate dancing at a club squished in the middle, with lots of people around them, watching them be gorgeous and sexy together.
“You’re always telling me I need to appreciate myself. Make sure other people know my worth,” Harini said.
“And not to waste your time on people who don’t value you for your many gifts,” Emma said, easing right back into one of her quasi-TED talk speeches, but kind of rueful, applying it to herself. Right before Harini found Emma insufferable, she’d do stuff like this.
“Lizzy’s got plans, but why don’t we do a girls’ night with Anne and Cath and your friend Meghana. Forget about François,” Emma said.
Evidently, Harini was in the we’re-gal-pals part of her job and while she knew she could say no, it would be weird given their conversation. And she liked Anne and Cath and Meghana would make sure Emma didn’t spend the whole night ruminating about François with an endless Cosmo in her hand.
They’d do shots, Meghana would make Cath blush, and maybe Harini could get a minute to ask Anne what she thought about Emma’s comments about George.
“I’ll text Meghana and Cath if you call Anne. If she doesn’t answer, try Frederick’s cell,” Harini said.
5.
“My boss thinks I shouldn’t date you,” Harini blurted out.
Fuuuuuck.
She’d said the silent part out loud.
Too loudly, like she was yelling “fire” because no one came if you yelled something else.
To Rob.
“What?” Rob replied, frowning, the frown making him even more good-looking. He wasn’t the kind of guy you’d call hot except when he was doing manual labor or carried anything reasonably heavy because he always rolled up his sleeves and he had the sexiest forearms Harini had ever seen. Fortunately for her, he handled most of the deliveries to the coffee-shop across the street from Woodhouse|Fairfax, so Harini got to see his forearms pretty often.
He didn’t roll his sleeves up to make coffee, which was what he spent most of his time doing, since he was a barista at Femme de Fermier, which leaned too heavily into Provençal rustic farmhouse décor for Emma to take seriously (Harini, no farmhouse has that much lavender in it!), especially since Rob wasn’t the owner or anything fancy.
“You can do better, Harini. So much better. He goes to night school,” Emma had said, uttering night school like she’d licked the words off the bottom of her Manolo after traipsing through an abandoned warehouse.
Harini had been tempted to point out that she worked in what was a glorified flower shop and Rob worked in a coffee shop and it seemed like that was about as equal as you could get, when you considered everything. Harini didn’t even have aspirations to do something else, the way Rob did.
Rob was fun and kind and handsome and patient, the patience at the forefront as he waited for her to respond. He never rushed anybody, not even when someone was taking a bazillion years to come up with their order which was kind of frustrating, except that he gave extra whipped cream to whoever was waiting for the indecisive person to make up their mind.
“Um, I shouldn’t have said that,” Harini said.
Maybe he’d let it drop.
He shook his head a little, totally unaware of how it made his curly dark hair look like he was in a shampoo commercial.
“But you did. I don’t understand, your boss is trying to control your relationships?” he said.
He hadn’t said romantic relationships or who you date but he also hadn’t said friendships, so the part of Harini that wasn’t squirming miserably squirmed hopefully. He’d never asked her on a date per se, Emma had been talking about three month plans and one year goals and Harini had been wishing Jenner would show up or George.
George would have been better.
“Not like control them. She’s giving me advice? She wants the best for me,” Harini tried to explain.
“Not a barista. Not me,” he shrugged.
Emma and the entire older generation of Harini’s family would be much happier if Rob was an engineer or a surgeon (preferably heart or brain, ortho a distant third) who stopped by the coffee shop for his morning French roast, but Harini herself knew it was unlikely a guy like that would be someone she was attracted to and who saw her as anything more than an underachiever.
“What she thinks is the best. I don’t—I mean, you might not even want to date me, it might not matter,” Harini said.
“It does. Did,” Rob replied.
For the first time, Harini thought that’s it, it’s over and also that she’d have to get a French press or find another coffee shop to get a latte from, since she could clearly never return to Femme de Fermier. She’d have to get over whatever it was or had been or never quite been and suddenly, she wished she could talk to Anne about the whole thing.
“Sorry. Like, I get it,” Harini said.
“I go to trivia night at the bar on Crescent,” Rob said.
“Okay,” Harini said. It was an abrupt subject change but she’d been a dick to him, so—
“Like, if you ever came, that would be cool. We’d do better probably. It wouldn’t be a date,” Rob said.
“It wouldn’t,” Harini repeated, afraid to make it a question.
“Unless you wanted it to be. Trivia night’s pretty dorky. You might not want to even stay,” he said.
Harini imagined a bar, the low, smoky light, Rob sitting at a table, a beer sweating in front of him. Rob laughing, cheering when the answer was right, making fun of his friends when they were wrong, but never mean about it. Rob without an apron, wearing a sports jersey or a henley that make it clear how broad his shoulders were, Rob with five o’clock shadow at ten, his chair closer to hers than anyone else’s.
It wasn’t a hard call.
“I might. It’s not as dorky as karaoke,” Harini said.
Harini loved karaoke.
“You could bring a friend. Not your boss,” he said.
“I wouldn’t—I, she’s wouldn’t want, I don’t have to hang out with her all the time,” Harini said.
“No, you don’t,” Rob replied and smiled.
The smile made him even more good-looking than the frown.
6.
“A lady doesn’t kiss and tell,” Harini said, prim as any secondary character in a period drama, but minus the exquisitely embroidered dress and messy bun that no one wore before 1990.
“Not even her boyfriend?” Rob replied from his end of the couch.
It had been three weeks, 2 days, and 4 hours since Rob first referred to himself as her boyfriend and Harini was still not over it.
And yet, she had standards.
“Nope,” she said, hitting the p and wiggling her toes in her hedgehog themed fuzzy socks.
“Then it’s juicy, whatever you’ve got,” Rob said.
Working late, catching François manspreading in Jenner’s office chair, Jenner on his lap, all her crisp decorum shed along with her blazer, blouse, pencil skirt and lace panties but notably not her heels.
Catching François’s eye while patrician, perfect Jenner moaned Quebecois profanities, the sound of which had been the reason Harini walked around the deserted office with a stapler in her hand as a weapon.
Yeah, juicy.
Catching sight of Mr. Darcy’s screen filled with diamond engagement rings when she’d just stopped by to check he was happy with the timing for the flower delivery and then being asked her opinion for the next forty-five minutes and being told to call him Darcy minus the mister.
Yeah, juicy.
Getting butt-dialed by Emma and then listening in shock, awe, and titillated embarrassment for at least five minutes longer than she should have to what had to be Emma and George’s first time, usually voluble boss Emma reduced to ohs, ahs, and George’s name drawn out like maple syrup poured into snow, silent partner and general all-around-nice-guy George evidently an Olympic gold medalist at dirty talk with a definite predilection for giving orders.
Yeah, juicy.
(And she had not yet figured out how she’d face either one of them, which was why it was good she was currently on vacation with Rob at his family’s cabin, sitting on an aggressively plaid couch with a fire roaring away in a river stone faced fireplace.)
“Like I said, I don’t kiss and tell,” she repeated.
“Good,” Rob replied. “Because I don’t want you talking about this—”
And then he proceeded to kiss her with such deliberateness and then abandon that even though her mouth was open, she was speechless.
For @amarguerite whose Persuasion AU "Five Times Frederick Wentworth Had the Breath Knocked Out of Him On the Ice (and one time he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding)" has been such a joy to re-read during this Winter Olympics/dark night of the soul for everyone in the US.
It had been quite a surprise to the Martins see the Woodhouses’ carriage stop at the end of the gravel walk, but when Harriet emerged from it all surprise gave way to nervous agitation. Elizabeth had never doubted, had professed at least that she did not, that Harriet would return her call. Her mother and sister had not been so sanguine however, and even Elizabeth’s joy was tinged with uncertainty. How could they feel otherwise? They had all expected, been joyfully preparing even, to welcome Harriet Smith as a relation; and however earnest Robert had been in wishing that his disappointment ought not to lead to their resentment, it was impossible not to feel the slight.
All this made a rather doubting reception of Harriet when she entered the parlour. Elizabeth and Susannah wished to show themselves candid, but did not manage to be civil without being formal, and noting beyond the commonest most threadbare topics were discussed.
It was not until Harriet rose to move to a seat closer to the window, that Mrs Martin observed that she thought Miss Smith was grown and Elizabeth at once revived all their former intimacy by saying:
“We can see if she is, Mamma, there is her mark on the wainscot. Robert measured us all last September.”
Such a subject could not fail to bring warmth to all their voices. A smile overspread Harriet’s face, returning all the captivating sweetness that had so endeared her to them before, and she exclaimed most affectionately upon reading her own name beneath those of her two friends.
They all seemed to remember the day, the hour, the party, the occasion—to feel the same consciousness, the same regrets—to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they were just growing again like themselves, when the sound of a carriage was heard, and Miss Woodhouse’s chaise was once more seen at the gate.
Harriet’s spirits instantly sank and here eyes were turned towards the ground so soon that she could not even have observed the mortification on the faces of her friends. Such a visit. Fourteen minutes to be given to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months ago!
“I am afraid I must take my leave…” Harriet murmured.
Susannah preserved an indignant silence, and Mrs Martin only replied: “But of course. Miss Woodhouse must not be kept waiting.”
This was said so coolly that Elizabeth felt it incumbent on her to walk her friend to the door, even if her sister remained with their mother, saying in a low voice:
"Well, there's an end to all speculation, I daresay. Miss Woodhouse does not look kindly upon us."
"Say not another word about it, my dear. I would not for the world speak ill of any person esteemed by Mr Knightley, you know I would not." And this, spoken in such a tone, was quite sufficient to convey exactly what the lady felt at that moment.
Elisabeth’s feelings were impossible to describe. She could have reproached her former schoolfellow, had she not looked so very low. Their parting, which would once have attended all those embraces and tendernesses of the best of friends and closes of confidantes, was marked by ceremonious civility; and Harriet walked slowly down the gravel walk, to the carriage in which Miss Woodhouse was just barely visible.
The carriage drove off, carrying both Harriet and its mistress, Elisabeth imagined, to Highbury, which must have completely supplanted Abbey Mill Farm in the heart of the girl she had once hoped to call sister. And yet, Harriet had not come here unwillingly, she had not been cold, merely embarrassed, conscious of the pain she had brought. She had not looked as if she wished to leave them so soon—
“Miss Woodhouse is a very punctual young lady, I am sure,” observed Mrs Martin when her daughter re-entered the room and Elizabeth blanched with mortification.
“To see her sitting in her carriage, you'd think it was a punishment to look upon our very gate,” she said with trembling voice.
To have a brother disappointed in love, was one thing, but to see a sister, an only, younger sister, with the tears of wounded friendship in her eyes, proved too much for Susannah’s temper. She affected a gasp and cried: “How can it be otherwise! The gates were put in new only last spring.”
And lifting up her chin, she spoke, in a proper, modulated tone not unlike that of Miss Woodhouse:
“A very good sort of gate, I daresay, but I would be sorry to pass through any that had not been long established in the neighbourhood. One can expect nothing of a gate that has stood for under a decade, 'tis but a new creation.”
Susannah gained her point, Elizabeth laughed; but Mrs Martin, who besides not wishing her daughter to be uncivil, had no small degree of pride in Abbey Mill being the longest established farm at Donwell save for its home farm, could not approve. But likewise being quite as resentful of Miss Woodhouse's conduct as either of her daughters, she could not bring herself to any reprimand firmer than a decided change of subject. She turned her attention to the dairy and the poultry yard and neither Miss Woodhouse nor Miss Smith were mentioned again that day.
