Chapter Text
Miss Fairfax tensed. She could not help it. Miss Woodhouse made her nervous.
Everybody was always going on about how lucky she was. 'Imagine! Miss Woodhouse picking her as her particular companion after losing Miss Taylor! It was no wonder, either, Miss Woodhouse being so used to company.'
For a while it had seemed as if Miss Smith would fulfil this role as confidante and female companionship, but her engagement to a Mr. Martin had thrown a coolness over their relationship that the subsequent marriage had done nothing to assuage, being so against what Miss Woodhouse felt was owed her by her acquaintances.
It was now Miss Fairfax had arrived at the scene. After the engagement, and before the marriage. At first, she suspected that Miss Woodhouse's newfound partiality towards herself was a way for her to show the new Mrs. Martin what she was missing out on. But her favouritism, whatever its cause, had continued also after Mrs. Martin had committed herself to her destiny.
The fact that the marriage was not so very imprudent as Miss Woodhouse had supposed, only made the matter worse for her pride. The event had caused Harriet's parentage to become known. She proved to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to have always wished for concealment.—Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!—It was likely to be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what a connexion had she been preparing for her acquaintance — even for Mr. Elton!—The stain of illegitimacy, unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.
No objection was raised on the father's side; the young man was treated liberally. It would appear that Miss Smith had not married to disoblige her family, but rather only to disoblige Miss Woodhouse. She was injured and angry. The wound to her pride not easily cured.
As for Jane, she could not afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose or sacrifice one connexion that might possibly assist her. Selfishly, Jane felt, she thought that the Campbells, out of the twelve thousands pounds marked for their daughter, could have spared her two. Ten thousand pounds was still a respectable sum. Or one! Or just enough for the few hundred pounds left to her by her father could have become one. To eke out a living on the interest of a thousand pounds was not a prospect to inspire any delight – But, oh, the alternative!
The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma had now come join her for a bit of conversation.
Miss Woodhouse did not find in her the ready simplicity of Miss Smith.
Miss Woodhouse looked bored.
Jane felt nervous. Any agency in the country or a simple advertisement would readily supply Miss Woodhouse with another companion, perhaps more to her taste. Although careful to never voice the thought – Why saw off the only branch she had found to sit on, after all – she had wondered why such a solution had not been reached or thought of ere then.
Perhaps the answer lay in the Woodhouses', at least Mr. Woodhouse's, if not instinctive distrust of strangers, then preference of old acquaintances. For his daughter, however, it may be that she preferred a companion with whom she was on equal footing.
An arrangement was reached that in addition to a small salary, equal to or greater than she would have earned as a governess, she would be remembered in Miss Woodhouse's will, when the day came. Miss Woodhouse, now not any longer having lived nearly twenty-one years, but the full twenty-one years in the world, signed a statement to that fact, that would be valid towards her estate, that Miss Fairfax would be entitled of so many thousands as would always be called two.
Jane Fairfax reeled at so considerable a sum. While a poor dowry for anybody of their acquaintance, it would enable her to live independently, if at modest means.
'I hope, Miss Fairfax, that I can trust you not to push me in front of an oncoming carriage on that regard,' Miss Woodhouse had observed drily. Jane wondered what that must like. Not having that much money and being at liberty to spend it at every luxury and whim, any body possessed of imagination may readily picture that, but being at liberty to speak one's mind.