My courage rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours, and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.
I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to think it a right, I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--
Had she refused, I should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--
To any thing, every thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts, perseverance and weariness, health and sickness.
Every possibility of good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her promises of faith and correspondence.
If you need farther explanation, I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband's son, and the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have been sooner paid.
You will look back and see that I did not come till Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as you were the person slighted, you will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father's compassion, by reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to reprehension, excepting on one point.
And now I come to the principal, the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest humiliation.--
A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviour to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--
In order to assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately thrown.--I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any selfish views to go on.--
Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is, she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me, was as much my conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.
We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether Miss Woodhouse began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight, I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me, at least in some degree.--
She may not have surmised the whole, but her quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find, whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it. I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--
I hope this history of my conduct towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation of what you saw amiss.
While you considered me as having sinned against Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as myself.--
Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight, you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.
If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--
Of the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--
The delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam, is much beyond my power of doing justice to.
You will soon, I earnestly hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--
No description can describe her. She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own merit.--Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw, I have heard from her.--
She gives a good account of her own health; but as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion of her looks.
I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread of the visit.