A/N: Just wrapping up the loose ends now, pretty much.

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This is the last chapter before the epilogue, and then it's truly over. If you have been reading but haven't reviewed thus far, now is the time to come out and do so!

Chapter Twelve – The News Spreads Further

The news of the engagement of Miss Woodhouse of Hartfield and Mr. Knightley of Donwell Abbey was much better received by the general population of Highbury and Donwell than by Emma's father. Mr. Knightley had written to John; Emma to Isabella, and Emma had told Mrs. Weston, who had told Mr. Weston, who had told Miss Bates, who had told everybody.

Some might think him and others might think her the most fortunate of the two, but it was in general a very well-approved match, unexceptionable in points of wealth, station, breeding and the oft overlooked and yet crucial points of mutual and sincere attachment and equality of mind.

The only voice strongly opposed to the match was to be found in the vicarage. The news had very much discomposed Mrs. Elton, and at every mention of it she would shake her head sadly and sigh, 'Poor Knightley!' If they could only have known it, she and Mr. Woodhouse could have spent many a companionable morning lamenting over the folly of the two involved.

The strongest feeling among the general populace was in fact actually one of surprise. Certainly they had all known of Mr. Knightley's long-standing friendship with the Woodhouses, as well as his closer connection with them through his brother, but they had never suspected that the attraction of Hartfield had been anything more. As for Emma, many had in the past remarked over what a pity it was that there was nobody suitable for her in her circle of acquaintance; all had utterly passed over Mr. Knightley as a possibility – after all, he was rather her brother, was he not? Many a Highbury gossip was kicking herself for never having formed the idea of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse, which once opened up seemed utterly obvious.

It had astonished those who knew them perhaps most of all. Everyone had thought Mr. Knightley a confirmed bachelor, almost certain to remain happily single for the rest of his days, and those who were close to Emma had all known of her resolution never to marry – this made it all the more amazing to them that she had finally been brought to do so, and by none other than the man they had all complacently shelved away as a "bachelor"!

This piece of intelligence – of Emma's wishing to marry despite her own previous resolutions and all her father's reluctance – conveyed more to Mrs. Weston and Isabella than to anyone else. It convinced them beyond the shadow of a doubt that their Emma loved her Mr. Knightley fully, exclusively, completely, and they could not have been happier for the two of them.

Apart from the couple themselves, they were in fact the ones who were principally occupied in attempting to cheer Mr. Woodhouse and bring him around to wholeheartedly accept the match. He did love Mr. Knightley and did wish Emma to be happy, and did think that having both of them at Hartfield was a nice idea, and acknowledged that he would quite like having Mr. Knightley always at hand, but – but... marriage was a terrible thing which heralded change – deaths, births and an endless cycle of worries. The very thought unsettled him.

Just a reference to setting a date made him thoroughly miserable, so nobody was more surprised than Emma and Mr. Knightley when two weeks after their engagement had been formed, Mr. Woodhouse gave his consent to their setting a date, and in fact even seemed to be urging them to proceed without any unnecessary delay. A day before they had almost despaired of contriving to marry within a twelvemonth, and now they were to marry in just over a month, which was as fast as they could arrange all that was necessary. Mr. Woodhouse fretted at what he saw as their unnecessary procrastination, and wished they could move the date even closer.

Perhaps some preliminary explanation is required to make sense of such an extraordinary change of mind before it can even begin to be comprehended.

A day or two before Mr. Woodhouse gave his consent for the wedding, news of a yet more intriguing kind had been broken to Highbury. The sudden death of Mrs. Churchill had been swiftly followed by the news that her nephew Frank was engaged to Jane Fairfax. Of all those in Highbury, only the Westons, Emma and Mr. Knightley knew just how long the duration of the engagement had been; to all others it seemed rather sudden and completely out of the blue.

Nobody had even had any idea that Frank Churchill had ever admired Jane Fairfax, although Miss Bates began to remember one or two occasions when Frank Churchill had called on them and stayed so very long to mend the rivet in Mrs. Bates' spectacles and to wedge the leg of Jane's pianoforte with paper. However, she was not equal to the arch triumph of Mrs. Elton who was sure she had spied out the attachment before anyone else had known of it, no matter how sly dear Jane had been about it. It would have irked her indeed to know that 'poor Knightley' and his Emma had known of it well before the news had ever reached her ears.

There was a great deal of good-will towards Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax, whom everyone agreed were exceptionally well-matched: for he was a handsome young man, and she was a beautiful young woman, and if all the fortune was on his side, well, all the accomplishment was on hers. And although there was a great deal of sympathy towards Mrs. Churchill – in fact, a great deal more than she ever received while living, for her death had convinced everyone that the poor lady really must have been ill – everyone agreed that it was singularly lucky that she died when she did, for otherwise she might have posed an obstacle to the young people.

Mr. Woodhouse especially was very sympathetic towards poor Mrs. Churchill. Naturally so, for he disapproved of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax's plan to marry, just as he disapproved of Harriet Smith and Robert Martin's, which Emma had told him of only the other day. He had shaken his head sadly and sighed. 'Emma, my dear,' he had said, 'I really think you and Mr. Knightley have been doing a very bad thing; no doubt it was from following your example that they all took it into their heads to marry themselves, poor souls.'

He thought of all the weddings which would be coming up and all the bustle and all the rich, unhealthy wedding cakes and his head began to spin. And then a sudden, brilliant idea struck him – he knew Harriet and Robert were going to marry in three weeks, and Frank and Jane in a month and a half – if his own Emma and Mr. Knightley got married in between that time, surely nobody would miss a cake if they did not have one? They would still have Harriet and Robert's cake, and could still look forward to Frank and Jane's cake.

He communicated his idea to Emma and Mr. Knightley who were only too glad to forego the wedding cake if it meant they could marry.

In fact, when the day of the wedding actually came about, nobody took its cakelessness amiss except for the Perry children, for everyone else understood that Mr. Woodhouse's nervous constitution required such a compromise if he were to be expected to bear such a change as his own daughter's marriage.

And indeed, despite that, and despite Mr. Elton's rather lacklustre performance of the service, everything went off well. Even Mrs. Elton was well-satisfied with the day, particularly as she observed in the first few minutes that Miss Woodhouse's dress had much less white satin and expensive lace veils than hers had had, and that the wedding as a whole was extremely shabby compared to her own – for goodness' sake, Miss Woodhouse's coiffure was done up in much the same style as usual with the only difference being a few pearls which were strung through her hair. This, Mrs. Elton had to reluctantly admit, was a small step in the right direction, but there were not nearly enough of them and they were not nearly large enough to make any material difference. And Knightley – she had expected better of him: why, she could have sworn she had seen him wear that waistcoat once before, and she knew it was not even made in London! Selina would stare when she heard of it.

All in all, the wedding had been very inferior to her own, and she was sure the honeymoon would be too. Her own had been in Bath, which was of course a place of the first fashion, and the place where she had bought that wonderful little bonnet the likes of which backward little Highbury had never seen before. And to be making such a mystery of the place where they were going – well, it did not speak very highly of it if they were too ashamed to make the place known to others.

In fact, she was beginning to lose some of her sympathy for Knightley – he had shown rather poor judgment not only in choosing Miss Woodhouse, but in the arrangement of his own wedding and honeymoon, and that waistcoat...! She could not forget it; it had looked smart to be sure, and he had looked very handsome in it, but not only was it not brand new, it was not in that new orange paisley pattern which was all the rage in Bath at the moment.

Well, she could only shake her head and sigh and hope that dear Jane would heed her advice and avoid such a pathetic state of matters.