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....