Excerpt of The Intrigue at Highbury: Or, Emma's Match by Carrie Bebris

“When such success has blessed me in this instance, dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match- making.”
—Emma Wood house, Emma

Emma Woodhouse Knightley, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition— a happiness recently compounded by her marriage to a gentleman of noble character and steadfast heart— seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty- two years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

With two notable exceptions: the Reverend and Mrs. Philip Elton.

“I am still appalled by their conversation,” Emma said to her husband as they sat in Hartfield's drawing room after dinner. Her father had just retired for the night, leaving the newlyweds to enjoy an hour of peace before retiring themselves. Emma’s mind, however, was anything but quiet as she dwelled upon the discussion she had overheard that morning, and neither the familiar comforts of the room— the Chippendale sofa and side chairs, the portrait of her late mother above the great hearth— nor the novelty of her bridegroom’s now-permanent presence there, could quell her agitation.

“That is what comes of eavesdropping,” Mr. Knightley said.

“I was not eavesdropping,” Emma insisted. “I was tying my bootlace.”

The lace had come undone as she left the home of Miss Bates, a middle-aged spinster who lived with her elderly mother in reduced circumstances on the upper floor of a modest house. Emma had visited their rooms many times (though perhaps not so often as she ought). Never before, however, had the humble apartment felt so small. The Eltons had called so shortly after Emma’s own arrival that it was some time before she could with propriety effect an escape. “I paused at the base of the stairs to fix the lace. Could I help it that the Eltons emerged from the apartment and began their discussion on the landing before I had done?”

Mr. Knightley’s expression suggested that she might have secured the half-boot more rapidly had she wanted to. Sixteen years her senior, he had known Emma her whole life, and was as well acquainted with her foibles as he was with her charms. His dark eyes narrowed in doubt, and for a moment she dreaded an admonition delivered in his usual forthright manner. Instead, he rose and stirred the fire. The flickering light shadowed his countenance and silhouetted his tall frame. Though he possessed the maturity and bearing of a man eight-and- thirty, he had maintained the .firm .figure of younger days, and Emma congratulated herself on having found such a fine- looking husband once she had .finally opened her eyes to the gentleman next door.

He returned the poker to its stand and adjusted the screen to shield them from the heat. “It is fortunate that you managed to exit without the Eltons’ seeing you in the stairwell.” He sat down beside her on the sofa. “To have been caught listening to their conversation, however involuntarily, would not have reflected well on you.”

The last position in which Emma would want to find herself was that of giving Augusta Elton any room to expand her already inflated sense of superiority. Mrs. Elton’s greatest claim to society was a brother-in-law who owned a barouche-landau and an estate near Bristol. Though the house was named Maple Grove, Mrs. Elton seemed to think it was St. James’s Palace. She also took extraordinary pride in her status as the vicar’s wife, performing her role with pretensions of elegance and a pronounced air of noblesse oblige. Sadly, Mr. Elton, though a clergyman, was nearly as vain and insufferable as she.

“It is still more fortunate that I did overhear them, for now I can rescue poor Miss Bates from their plotting.”

“Emma—”

“Honestly, you should have heard them! Talking about how Miss Bates will surely become dependent upon parish charity after her mother dies.”

“I doubt that will happen, with her niece marrying Frank Churchill next week. A gentleman who stands to inherit an estate the size of Enscombe will not forsake his wife’s aunt.”

Emma knew that Mr. Knightley spoke not from conviction of Frank Churchill’s reliability, but from his own principles: Because Mr. Knightley would never neglect a needy relation, he expected all gentlemen to demonstrate the same sense of duty. In fact, he had forfeited his own independence to act rightly by Emma’s father. Upon their marriage, Mr. Knightley had graciously moved into the house of Emma’s birth so that she need not abandon the invalid Mr. Woodhouse or subject the old man to the trauma of leaving his lifelong home to live with them at Mr. Knightley’s more sizable estate, Donwell Abbey. Though the distance was slight— Hartfield bordered Mr. Knightley’s grounds— Mr. Wood house suffered from a nervous disposition and did not bear well change of any sort. The living arrangement left Donwell Abbey without its master in residence, and Emma appreciated the sacrifice her husband had made on behalf of herself and her father.

The vicar and his wife, however, were entirely capable of more selfish conduct, and therefore anticipated it in others. “The Eltons are convinced that once Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax wed and move so far away as Yorkshire, the Bates ladies will be forgotten,” Emma said. “Mrs. Elton is determined to make certain that Miss Bates becomes someone else’s responsibility and not the parish’s.”

To be specific, Mrs. Elton had proposed marrying off Miss Bates to any man— gentleman or not— who would have her. Granted, finding a husband for a woman of forty-odd years would prove a daunting enterprise, and Miss Bates’s situation was further challenged by the spinster’s propensity for endless chatter. Emma herself found Miss Bates’s trivial tidings and cheerful effusions tedious; she could scarcely imagine a husband willing to endure them day and night.

Mrs. Elton, however, had gone so far as to suggest an addlepated local farmer as the ideal candidate, and declared to Mr. Elton her intention of arranging the match. In that, the vicar’s wife had gone too far.

“She cannot be permitted to proceed,” Emma continued. “Not when I have the ability to arrange a superior establishment for Miss Bates.”

“You told me, Emma, after Harriet Smith married Robert Martin despite your interference, that you had given up matchmaking.”

“This is not matchmaking. It is—” She considered her words carefully, for there was no bluffing her husband. Mr. Knightley knew her better than did any other soul on earth. “It is merely taking advantage of an opportunity.”

“An opportunity to meddle.”

Now Emma found herself vexed not only at the Eltons, but at her “dear Mr. Knightley.” This latest was a slight vexation— a trifle, really. Well, perhaps more than a trifle. But it was her husband’s fault for willfully misinterpreting her motives for the scheme she had spent all afternoon contemplating.

“An opportunity to show kindness towards someone to whom you yourself have said I ought to demonstrate greater generosity. You should be pleased that I have taken to heart your reproofs regarding my lack of consideration for Miss Bates, and that I wish to make amends for my previous neglect. Her situation is indeed pitiable. She has sacrificed half her life to the care of her near-deaf mother. Is she to spend her old age either alone in poverty, or with some half-wit imposed upon her by Mrs. Elton?”

“We can guard Miss Bates from any maneuverings Mrs. Elton might undertake without your trying to orchestrate a match of your own.”

“Can we? Miss Bates is so appreciative of any attention or kindness shown her that even if she had reservations about the groom, she would wed him simply out of gratitude, or in deference to Mrs. Elton for arranging the marriage. If Miss Bates ever possessed enough quickness of mind to recognize an unfavorable situation when presented with one, years of deprivation have surely worn down her ability to resist it.”

Mr. Knightley could remember Miss Bates at a more carefree period of her life— before her father, a former vicar of Highbury, had died. As a clergyman’s benefice made no provisions for surviving dependents, Mr. Bates’s widow and daughter had been left to shift as best they could on an income insufficient to support even one of them, let alone two, in moderate comfort. The pair, however, being of naturally content temperaments and possessing enough sense to live within their means, accepted their situation with grace, and made the best of it.

“Miss Bates never exhibited your cleverness, Emma, nor even an intellect as strong as her younger sister’s. Yet you will not meet a kinder-hearted soul in all Surrey. Leave her in peace.”

“Her good heart is precisely why I wish to perform a kindness for her in turn. You would merely save her from the evils of Mrs. Elton, whereas I hope to secure her a future happier than her present. Somewhere in England there must be a gentleman— a good, decent gentleman, not merely the first unmarried commoner Mrs. Elton can manipulate— who can appreciate Miss Bates.”

“It would not be a kindness to introduce hopes that Miss Bates must have set aside long ago, only to have them once more disappointed.”

“Why do you assume they will be disappointed? She need not captivate the entire Polite World, merely a single man.” Ideally, one in possession of a good fortune....