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It was a regular day on which Harriet received a letter from her friend Emma Knightley. The pair had formed a new friendship in the wake of their marriages but were never quite as close as they had been. Having seen her friend quite recently, she was surprised to receive such a letter, and worried that it may bring bad news, but the letter’s seal reassured her, it was red, instead of the much dreaded black. The letter was written on thick sheets of paper, the outer sheet folded into an envelope. Harriet opened the letter and began to read.
My Dear Harriet,
In recent weeks, ever since the wedding, in actuality, I find myself experiencing a deep yearning. I hope you will not think this improper, but I find that unlikely, so instead I hope that if you do find it so, you will keep the contents of this missive to yourself, for I know others would not understand my plight.
Additionally, I would like to apologise for my cowardice, for you see, I intended to broach this subject on our walk last week but was unable to bring myself to do so.
By this point, Harriet had taken a seat at the kitchen table, quite enraptured with the letter.
My yearning is for you Harriet, at first, I assumed my feelings to be a reaction to the sudden changes in our lives, my seeing you less whilst I settled into married life at Hartfield, and you did the same at Abbey-Mill Farm. But the yearning is unchanging and unfaltering, I find myself driven to distraction by it.
Make no mistake, I expect nothing to come of this confession. My only reasoning for sending this letter is an unmistakable notion within me that it would be my great folly to keep such a thing to myself, for it may help to provide some explanation as to why I acted so foolishly when faced with your romantic endeavours.
It is my hope that you understand that the aim of this letter is not to request any form of acceptance from you, I am not quite foolish enough for that. It is merely a sharing of feelings in an attempt to shed the metaphorical weight I have been carrying with me.
In retrospect, I see now that my ill-fated attempts at matchmaking may have been informed by my feelings toward you, though I did not know it at the time. There was a certain discontent within me when I noticed your attraction to Mr. Martin, I assumed it at the time to be unhappiness with the fact that I felt you deserved more than a simple farmer (this too, was my folly, for I see now that love can be found in the strangest of places), but I was mistaken.
I then felt the same way when you confessed your attraction to Mr. Knightley, this time I could not attribute the discontent to an improper match, for anyone to be glad to marry a man of such good-standing, and attributed my displeasure to having feelings of my own for Mr. Knightley. While I do have feelings for my husband, I fear they are not as strong as the feelings I have for you, Harriet.
I wish you not to pity me, my friend. Mr. Knightley is a good man, I will be happy with him, I am happy with him, he will give me a fulfilling life full of love and laughter. I simply feel that feelings such as these should not be hidden but instead shared. As they say, grief shared is grief halved, while happiness shared is happiness doubled.
I hope this message will not cause you undue stress, and if it does so, you have my full permission to discard it from your mind. I will not bring this to your attention again, unless that is your wish. In writing this letter I beg your forgiveness, and your understanding. I apologise again for the abrupt nature of this missive and hope to hear from you soon.
Yours affectionately,
Mrs. Emma Knightley.
Harriet huffed a sigh and leaned back in her chair as she finished the letter, overcome with feelings of confusion at the message contained within. Even in her most unrealistic musings, she never came close to imagining something so preposterous as a confession from Mrs. Knightley.
Despite the other woman’s request to not pity her, Harriet did feel sympathetic, she could only imagine what it would be to have such confusing feelings. Though, she supposes it does explain her actions over the course of their friendship. Harriet appreciates the letter, if only for honesty’s sake. But is unable to say that she returns her friend’s feelings.
Though, thinking back on it, the deep admiration she felt for the other woman during the early stages of their friendship could be explained as some sort of childish crush. But any such feelings have long passed, overshadowed by the love she feels for her dear husband.
She takes a moment to reread a portion of the letter,
I hope you will not think this improper, but I find that unlikely, so instead I hope that if you do find it so, you will keep the contents of this missive to yourself, for I know others would not understand my plight.
Harriet feels strongly that the least she can do is keep her friend’s secret. Especially when the other woman made such an effort to rebuild and maintain their friendship, despite the impropriety of their wholly unequal social standings.
Having made up her mind, Harriet stands, she reads the letter through once more, committing it to memory, before placing it inside the fireplace and striking a match, she watches as the paper burns to ash. Emma’s secret concealed once more.