Free Emma (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Jane Austen

and complex can lead her into small but perceptible lapses occurs as Emma arrives at the Coles’ dinner party.
    She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole’s door; and was pleased to see that it was Mr. Knightley’s; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses, having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and independence, was too apt, in Emma’s opinion, to get about as he could, and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey (p. 193).
    It is a fine, compact little passage, which (as usual in Jane Austen) serves multiple purposes. It sets up the comic exchange between Emma and Knightley on how Emma can infallibly, and by simple inspection, discern whether a gentleman is living up to his rank. xvi Her absurdity and comic boastfulness, however, also include warm praise of Knightley’s unaffected naturalness of bearing. He responds by saying, either to Emma herself or to himself or to the air or even to the reader, “‘Nonsensical girl!’ ”—but the reply, the narrator assures us, was not at all in anger. He has learned long since to accept and even to bear with humor Emma’s willful self-assertion, her aggressive determination to be herself (which means principally to be on top and in command on all occasions) as part of her interest and charm, along with the nonsensicalities and even mischief that it entails.
    Emma’s praise, however, is also part of the continued irony trained against her. For unbeknown to herself, Knightley has put his carriage in use in order to send it out again to pick up and deliver Miss Bates and Jane Fairfax, who have been invited along with “the less worthy females” to join the company after dinner. And it will also take them back. The ever-considerate Mrs. Weston has also thought of putting their family carriage to this service in view of Jane’s delicate health and the cold weather, but Knightley has forestalled her. In any case, Knightley does not choose to treat them as “less worthy females” or less worthy anything else. Emma, we know, cordially dislikes both Miss Bates and Jane, though each of them for different reasons, and her class-bound appraisal of Knightley’s appearance as being solely motivated by equally class-bound self-approval is at once shot down. Mrs. Weston has been cultivating her own “plans”—which consist of the scenario that Knightley is going to be smitten by Jane’s beauty, elegance, and finished accomplishments, and that this will leave the way clear for a “match” between Emma and her stepson, Frank Churchill. She observes, knowing Knightley as they all do, that it is likely “ ‘that it was for their accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only an excuse for assisting them’ ” (p. 202).
    Emma covers her slight surprise by praising Knightley’s habitual “ ‘unostentatious kindness’ ” and noting that when she was ribbing him about the carriage and the gentleman he “ ‘said not a word that could betray’ ” (p. 202). Mrs. Weston then discloses to Emma her suspicion, which is also a wish that Knightley and Jane are going to get together. At which point, Emma explodes in alarm: “ ‘Mr. Knightley must not marry! ... I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley’s marrying.... I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt it now.’ ” On top of that, there is her secondary, defensive fantasy about her little nephew, Henry, Isabella and John Knightley’s oldest son, inheriting the estate—“ ‘I could not bear to have Henry supplanted’ ” (pp. 202-203). This wild idea, we will eventually learn, is part of Emma’s self-mystification, and she will part with it without pain.
    Two reasons are given for Knightley’s “keeping no horses.” One is that he has “a great deal of health, activity and independence” and is apt “to get about as he could.” He prefers being on his feet and moving around