Work Text:
From girlhood, as far back as the earliest everyone of her acquaintance has been insisting a better playmate than Miss Woodhouse could not be found or wanted for, Jane has wondered about Emma, until she could wonder no longer and had to decide for herself.
It begins with an evening of music amongst friends, not nearly enough time to speak to Emma on their own on more than the weather and Jane's pick of tune, for the company includes Frank Churchill, for whom her feelings recently diminished due to his continued absence of late, alongside others among their seemingly intimate party who would take either Emma or Jane aside to speak of much nonsense. After, there is visit after brief encounter on concomitant walks after yet another evening where talk is rare after visit after walk after visit, an endless array of opportunities which ultimately come to naught but a frivolous chat at best.
Emma does not approach her outside of the constraints of politeness, and Jane's patience with Frank grows thinner by the day, but there isn't much she can do about either but wait wait wait.
New arrivals in town make Jane's progress easier where excuses to meet are concerned, until, eventually, on one memorable occasion Emma is to be found without Miss Smith for a companion and Frank hasn't sent any sign of change in his circumstances, and, finally, Jane has an optimally fortuitous opportunity to sit at Emma's elbow.
No words come.
Not until Emma herself breaches the subject.
"Of course you have been missed at these gatherings," she offers, with the alacrity of the perfect hostess despite Hartfield not being, in fact, the setting of the gathering in question.
Jane does not have a reply at hand, but Emma perseveres on her own.
"It is a shame neither our dear Miss Smith nor Mr Knightley could attend."
Jane has forgotten her train of thought or the reason they are seated next to each other until this very moment.
She answers, "I would hope my company could satisfy for tonight."
There is no response from Emma, and their soup is becoming chilled, so they both refrain from further commentary. But, after the guests are set to leave, Emma offers her own carriage, with her inside of it, to deliver Jane to her Aunt's, and the following morning the carriage arrives again in order to deliver Miss Fairfax to Hartfield so that the two ladies can spend an afternoon reading together, the first of many if Jane's Aunt is to allow her the frequent trips to amuse her lonely friend.
No one inquires as to the change in demeanour, as, as far as any are concerned, they have always made for the best of companions, none better to be found in all of Highbury.
When, in the coming months, Miss Fairfax does not receive an offer of matrimony from any side and Miss Woodhouse becomes staunch in her refusal to accept any of the myriad of proposals at her doorstep, it becomes natural, as the years pass, to think of the two as becoming closer still.
And if anyone were to inquire, decades on, as to the nature of their friendship, none could conceive of it as anything less than affection itself.