Chapter 31
Of Harrying Moments
Emma had just finished picking and putting aside a small basket of strawberries. She would have one of the kitchen maids bring them to Amy after the party set off in their carriages for Box Hill.
She was busy tying a pretty ribbon around the handle of the basket when Frank Churchill arrived.
He had ridden up, and no sooner had a servant met him, taken his horse with the usually Donwell efficiency and it was after that when Frank Churchill stormed up, and it was truly a storming attitude because she felt his ill-humor rolling off of him in waves. Emma could imagine this was what Cardiff or Weymouth would feel like in the middle of a summer tempest, she could almost imagine the waves of the sea comingling with the rain and wind as they slapped against her face.
She was a little disappointed.
Candidly, it was not the joyous spirit she had expected from him. Rather not.
He shucked his jackets and tossed it onto the white wire patio chair, near where Emma stood perfecting the basket.
"It's not even noon and it is appallingly hot," he almost seethed—untying his cravat as he spoke. "Surely to get even hotter as the day wears on and what was Jane Fairfax doing out there? It looked as if she was about to walk off. Was she done with the summer heat and already leaving?" his tone had a careless edge and a hint of demand.
"No certainly not, she was feeling the need for a walk," Emma explained, Mrs. Elton was still slowly picking strawberries and was much too close to be considered out of earshot, she would not be able to say anything more about it. "And she wished to see the grounds, and she was walking out by the forest last I saw. Nothing to bring any harm, while some of us will elect to pick strawberries others among us will choose not to, that is not a problem," she added looking to soothe his ill-temper.
"Well from appearances, there are still many strawberries to be picked," Frank stated, looking out upon the rows and rows.
"Yes, but good heavens not all of them must be picked—we do have staff enough to do that, this morning was meant to be purely for entertainment, not drudgery," she told him. "To me, there is something comforting about being in a bucolic setting and picking from a garden. Would you like a basket, Mr. Churchill, so you might try it out?" she inquired, resorting to using his proper name as any proper lady might.
He eyed her carefully for a moment, before extending this hand to receive it from her. "Sure, but I've noted that you have also promised it to be entertaining—we shall see how it rates, and I am hoping it will not get much hotter for I felt steam might exit my ears while I was on horseback riding here with the sun beating down without mercy—it is hotter than the blazes and there is really not a cloud in sight, I'm sure picking berries would do nothing to soothe that!" he told her.
"There is a breeze again, that you should feel better now that you have foregone the jacket," she told him.
"I had bid Jane come and join us but she did not have the heart to do so, she said she would much rather walk in solitude," he told her. "Can you imagine it?" he scoffed.
He wiped his kerchief across his brow but while it removed the little beads of perspiration, it did nothing to remove the forehead creases as his expression remained harsh.
"Well sometimes I can," Emma responded, he gave her a look then as if he thought she was merely being a contrarian. "I am one that also likes to walk on occasion and often there is nothing happier many times than to be walking alone, with one's thoughts to themself, no pressure to make conversation and no worry about any interruption to one's thoughts," Emma explained.
"Very well, I just think that—well I thought that maybe it was a little discourteous," he acknowledged in a hushed tone and it was perhaps the first time Emma had ever heard anyone insinuate a deficiency of any sort with Jane Fairfax. "When we are invited here to pick strawberries," Frank said leaving the thought to hang.
Emma was quite a moment, stooping to pick a few more berries and place them in Frank's basket, "Similar to arriving here late?" she asked with a slight grin.
"There was no exact specified time," Frank defended. "I left on horseback almost as soon as my father's carriage had left, and aside from being waylaid briefly by Jane I was not delayed by anything else, I made good time" he assured.
"I was only teasing," she told him, "there was no especially established time as you say, we left the picking to morning, to commence sometime between ten and half-past eleven, and that we would plan to take chilled sweet iced tea before departing for the Hill so that everyone was well refreshed before leaving Donwell," she reminded.
"Very well," he agreed, yet his tone was still almost a grunt and sounded more out of obligation than true agreeance.
She settled that she would continue picking but merely ignore him for a time and allow the field to win him over.
After a while longer picking, his shoulders and general posture had relaxed and she inquired, "Are you feeling more at ease now Mr. Churchill?"
It could have been rhetorical for she knew already the answer.
"Somehow, and I have no idea why for it makes no sense to the natural mind, but yes, I am without a doubt," he told her and his face looked as much, so she smiled and put another handful of berries into his basket, offering a sage sounding, "Very good," as if she was one well beyond his years and experience.
"I'll introduce you to Mrs. Elton when she comes round this way," Emma promised her eyes big and saucer-like, almost jumping with the prospect—it was only once that one met Mrs. Elton for the first time, Emma thought to herself, she wondered what kind of treat it would be—and by treat, she might have meant exercise in decorum by the other bystander.
She did not disappoint, hustling over promptly being the only other picker in the patch she quickly noticed the addition, she after greeting Frank by only the name "Churchill" and went on to tell him she had heard much about his very wealth aunt Josephine Churchill, and that her vast fortune must have meant she was a remarkable person.
Frank somehow neither agreed nor disagreed, and instead bowed as if it were an honour, only Emma felt she saw a tinge of annoyance on his face when he rose, however imperceptible to the untrained eye.
"Oh, well do not be offended Churchill, it has little to do with your arrival and everything to do with the fact that I have taken my fill of strawberries –Now do eat many! You absolutely must! They are delicious! "she added, "But now I have picked more than I could ever wish and have had enough sun for the mid-morning—do not take it at all personally but I have the sense that I should rejoin Jane. Poor solitary girl walking in the shrubbery by herself— I can't help but think that just because she did not wish to pick more strawberries that it should mean she should be lonely. We must look after the poor girl –it is I am told the Highbury way," she explained, with some sort of put on accent which Emma speculated must have been her attempt at a genteel countrified sound. Immediately she began putting the half-filled basket into Emma's hand and then turned, waving and leaving them without time for refutement, the ribbons of her hat trailing like sails in the gentle breeze.
"That was interesting," Frank chuckled, and it was as if his raised brows said it all. "I can predict many things but had not seen that coming despite your description," shaking his head gently.
"Can you really? Can you really predict many things Mr. Churchill" Emma said increasing in the tone of a skeptic, "Well of that—yes, of that I am not so sure," Emma told him, stooping to being filling the basket that Mrs. Elton had handed her.
"You doubt me?" he asked as if hurt by the blow to his pride.
"Entirely," she told him, "after all you were wrong about one thing rather sensitive to me," she told him swiftly.
"A thing rather sensitive?" he reflected with a pause, "ah well yes, now you leave me with endless possibilities for prediction. I like any man of science, would require some level of information or logical insight as you might say, to make my assertions,"
She rolled her eyes at his fanfare, man of science my foot.
"You told me that if I were to kiss my husband there would be a positive reaction," she offered in a hushed and clipped tone.
"And you are saying you did and he didn't?" Frank was standing straight, now fully ignoring the presence of picking strawberries.
Emma hissed out, low and burning, a glint of upset even made it into her eyes as she looked up at him, "Yes! That is exactly what I am saying—your predictions are perfect nonsense," she felt as if her emphasis was on the consonant sounds in the last few words, the sounding more harsh and grating.
"Now wait just a moment," he shook his head and then stooped to be closer to where she was crouched. "I think I must be missing some form of information –what sort of reaction was it precisely?"
"Oh, well of that I am not sure, I kissed him and I left him there in the study,"
"Ah, so you didn't pause long enough to take in the reaction, and yet you seem to think it was not a good one,"
"Well he has said nothing of it, and the silence on the subject was welcomed by both of us, I can assure you. But to pretend that it had not happened, that is not what I would call a good reaction,"
"Well what kind of kiss was it?" he asked then as if the very matter stumped him entirely.
"Kind of kiss?" She asked and it was her turn to sound stumped, "you said nothing Frank Churchill about any kind of kiss, simply that if a kiss, then a positive reaction,"
"Well, surely I could not have described it to you, how untoward might that have been? And it is not as if you do not have other friends, my own stepmother, Mrs. Weston –once your very own governance and friend, Anne Taylor—she might have been relied upon and could share in greater detail than I, without any risk of impropriety, " he defended.
"I could not ask her!" Emma gasped out, "She—other people have a sort of – well they are better than us, more reserved which makes them all far better than you or I. For this reason, I knew that you would not judge me for it which I why I brought it up—you are as imperfect as I and that won you my confidence—my friendship for I knew you could not judge me for we a much the same!"
"Well, I am glad my lack— nay, my imperfection has won some esteem with you Emma, but I did not think you would apply my advice without considering the meaning, not all kisses are alike," he told her succinctly. "Would you have kissed your grandmother with the same general style?"
"I have never given a kiss to another person on their lips in my entire life; it was unlike that of what I would have offered anyone hiterto,"
"Ah, of location that sounds correct, but of its nature and of its style—would you liken it to that which you would have given your dear papa, for example, should it have been upon his cheek?"
"A kiss is a kiss, Frank Churchill," she stated without the slightest hesitation, but then was quickly putting down the basket and beginning to march off.
"Ah but a kiss is not a kiss Emma Knightley," he called after her, still at a low volume so as not to be heard by anyone else but it earned him a harsh glare.
"You say that now! Ugh! It makes my blood boil that you'd left such vagueness in your previous explanation," she hissed before turning away with rapidity to her walk and stiffness to her movements. "You were wrong!" She said pointedly, and although she did not extend her hand and point at him with her index finger jabbing into the air toward him, he would say the effect was near enough the same.
He watched her storming off and thought he'd certainly have to clear that up. He couldn't very well have his friend –his one true friend feeling mad at him even if he felt I wasn't fully justified.
He would make it up to her. He'd be everything she'd asked of him for this afternoon.
She had said in her letter that he was " sensational " and that he was someone that people liked to talk to and that he was someone that people liked to talk about. She was so certain that he would be able to bring colour to the picnic conversation. And that she desperately needed his presence; it was of paramount importance to her. And she wanted it to be extra colorful for effect. She would have her wish; she would find him at his most charming—the brightest and the shiniest version of himself.
Bright and captivating, and he'd also have to find a way to ingratiate again into her esteem and high opinion, like the way she'd looked at him before stalking off, had him certain she may never invite him any place again had she her wish—and should her mood not change about it later.
And like it or not, he knew he needed her, needed her good opinion, especially after meeting Jane Fairfax wandering along her extensive grounds.
He hissed out a sigh, he'd win back her good opinion this afternoon.
AN: I am so sorry guys! THANK YOU for the reviews. I wanted to do this as a Christmas gift but that didn't work out. Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
No excuses, I'll aim to write more and faster. My writing mood hasn't been around for a while. This chapter has been mostly done since September-I'm sooo sorry!). I basically forced myself to finish this out of discipline. I think it shows a little-not my best work.
I just bought a house, and I'm loading up on new year resolutions. Everything from exercise to eating right to focus on relationships.
Here my ask the audience for you guys:
Do you guys think I should ask my real estate agent out for coffee? I think Jane Austen would say no... but he's incredible, smart, really kind and a total babe! He looks exactly like Jonathan Scott! A few moments between us have felt flirty but then he could just be like that to everyone... I'm not feeling very confident! BUT I also don't want to miss a good opportunity! It is SO RARE that I genuine what to get to know someone better. What do you think I should do and if I do think I should ask, how should I ask him? AHHH
Tell me your thoughts about this chapter! How are we doing so far? On to Box Hill!
