SCENE I.—A small Parlour in the House of Latitia; enter Emma, and walks about thoughtfully; presently enter Franklin by another door.

⁠How fortunate I am to find you here! ⁠How so? you seem agitated. ⁠I have been sculking about the premises for a chance of your coming into the garden, that I might see you before I set off. ⁠Set off! where are you going? ⁠Anywhere, for I cannot stay longer here. ⁠What is the matter? Cannot stay? ⁠I cannot stay a moment longer in Sir Cameron's house, and I don't like to go to another, ​which might give him pain. He has got a strange crotchet into his head about some key or other, and I don't know what besides, and he has spoken to me very unkindly. ⁠I am sorry for it. But it will soon pass away. Those who are naturally suspicious are often unkind, and repent it afterwards. ⁠And why should I linger here, only to strengthen what is but too strong already—an adversary, which for your sake, dearest Emma, as well as my own, ought to be kept in check. Blessings on you, my sweet and generous friend! Only say that I may again visit you when you come to town with your aunt, and I will take my leave as cheerly as I may. ⁠Surely you won't go now, when we are are all assembling round my aunt's tea-table, on matters of great importance, and you are one of the invited, you know. Be as testy with Sir Cameron as you please, but surely she deserves more courtesy at your hands. ⁠And shall have it too, if it be a courtesy which she will be pleased with, and her little niece does not forbid. I think I hear them assembling; ​they are merry without.—Poh, poh! I care not a fig for Sir Cameron. ⁠You will join us by and by; I must go now to be useful. ⁠And I'll be useful too. I'll pour out the tea for you, Emma. That little delicate hand has not strength enough to lift a heavy teapot over all the circle of cups and saucers that wait for the fragrant stream from its bountiful spout. Care for Sir Cameron! No; I care for nobody now. ⁠You will join us by and by, then? ⁠Nay, I will go with you now, and lead you in boldly before them all. (Offering his arm.) ⁠You are bold, of a sudden. ⁠I am bold or timid at any time, as the influence of my little governess inspires. ​ ⁠Ay, poor young things! you must have patience: matrimony is a very pretty thing, but it will not knock at your door at this bout.

⁠And at whose door will it knock at this bout? ⁠What is that to you, Mr. Long-ears; you may guess. ⁠One, mayhap, at whose door it will not have to wait: ready entrance to the long expected may be depended upon. ⁠Long expected? ⁠Yes; and how long, Mrs. Flounce? Some ten or fifteen years, or thereabouts? ⁠Say fifteen, an you will; what is that to my mistress? ⁠O, it is your mistress you are thinking of. ​ ⁠And who was it you were thinking of, I should be glad to know? ⁠Not so very glad, neither, were I to answer "of the mistress's maid."—Well, well; don't look so grave. It is your mistress's door, then, that matrimony is now knocking at; but why should you be so pert upon it? ⁠I am forgetting my flowers. ⁠I'll arrange them for you, and carry them to the drawing-room presently. In the mean time, tell me why you are so pert upon this marriage; it won't mend the profits of your place. (Taking the nosegay from her, and arranging them in a pot on a side-table while she speaks.) ⁠No; but it may prevent my profits from being reduced. If she would remain as she is, with her lovers, and her confidants, and her flatterers, and her concerts, and her parties, and all proper suitable things that a rich lady ought to have, I should ask no better; but if she takes it into her head that a lady of thirty should give up gay dressing, and apply to her learning, and become a book-fancier, and a blue-stocking virtuoso, ​what's to become of my perquisites? It would make your hair stand on end, to hear all the nonsense I have heard about them there books. ⁠My hair makes no stirring at all when nonsense is spoken. It would have a restless time of it else in this family; so pray tell me. ⁠And, will you believe it—whole shelves filled with great vollums; and some of them— fiend take them!—with as much silk, gold, and vellum on their backs as would buy a gentlewoman a good gown. ⁠That will take nothing away from you, will it? ⁠The man's an ass altogether!—If my lady gives twelve guineas for the binding of an album, as they call it, and hundreds for prints, and old stones, and rubbish, and rattletraps beside, what good will that do to me? when, I dare say, she'll scrub off her wardrobe, and go about at last, as my Lady Blackletter does, in a gown that our curate's wife would scarcely put on when she goes visiting amongst all the poor sickly bodies of the parish. I knows very well how it would be; so I hope marriage is now really at hand, to save us from worse. ​ ⁠I hope so, too, Mrs. Flounce; for I fear the fine books might injure the cellar as well as the wardrobe. ⁠O never fear that; she would have poets and ancient philosophers coming about her in plenty, and they like a good dinner and good wine as well as any body; much better than lovers do, I trow. But we must gossip no longer here; you have set out the flowers beautifully; so take them to the drawing-room directly.

⁠Stupid oaf! what makes you run so? ⁠The gentlefolks want more bread and butter. ​ ⁠Deuce choke them! is all that was provided for them done already? and Master Lawry gone to bed too. I hope they want nothing else? ⁠Oh, but they do! they wants more cream and more cups and saucers. ⁠The devil they do! they will never have done wanting. (Bell rings.) And they are as impatient as the Grand Turk: make haste, you oaf.

The Scene opens, and discovers Sir Cameron Kunliffe, Brightly, Thornhill, Latitia, Emma, and Franklin beside her, occasionally employed in pouring out tea, &c., seated round a Table, while laughing and talking is heard as the Scene opens.

⁠Ha, ha, ha! and all that passes upon you, my good Thornhill, for disinterested generosity. ⁠And what should it pass for? ​ ⁠Some expectation of a legacy, perhaps, from that old Lady Bountiful of the neighbourhood, who would like to enrich such an amiable philanthropist. ⁠But that old lady was dead, Kunliffe. ⁠O what a loss to the topers at the Cat and Bagpipes! for they will now be obliged to support their own families and drink less. ⁠Don't be so hard-hearted, Sir Cameron. ⁠You must make some allowance for one who holds a justice-court every Friday, and has all the misdoings of the parish brought before him. ⁠Where, thanks to his natural gift of suspectiveness, he detects as much knavery, and dispenses as prompt justice, as the sage governor of Barataria. ⁠And there is a droll look on his face at this moment, as if some curious case had been lately before him. ​ ⁠Is it so, Sir Cameron? Do tell us about it. ⁠As it proves the ingenuity of your sex and the simplicity of ours, you shall have it. A country girl appeared in court the other day, who would oblige the booby son of a small farmer to marry her, because, on his account, she had refused the addresses of a very advantageous match. ⁠And how did she prove that? ⁠By calling upon the booby to declare that he had listened at the window of an old malt-house, and heard the shrill voice of his mistress in earnest discourse within with a gruff-voiced man, whose offers of marriage she refused very saucily, on account of her attachment to himself, poor simpleton. ⁠And whether do you call him simpleton, for believing his own ears, or for giving evidence against himself? ⁠For the first, assuredly. What one believes as a fool, one is bound to declare as an honest man. And he would have smarted for his honesty, too, ​had it not been for the accidental intrusion of a plough-boy, who at the moment slipt softly into the said malt-house, and discovered, that though two voices had issued from the house, there was but one person within. ⁠Clever hussy! she deserved a husband for the trick. ⁠And she should have had one suited to her merits, could I have transferred to her a smart-looking fellow, who had eloped with the prettiest girl in the parish, on the evening of her wedding-day, just to take her out of his friend the bridegroom's hands, as he gallantly stated it. ⁠I think he was mated very suitably with the woman he eloped with. The bridegroom was well quit of her; she was not worth contending for. ⁠Yes; but it was not for her they contended. No, truly; the matter to be decided was, whether the man who had lost the bride, or the man who had got her, should pay the expenses of the wedding dinner. ⁠Oh, the worldly creatures! ​ ⁠But to return to the old subject of fashions, Mr. Brightly, which was interrupted by Mr. Thornhill's admiration of his friend's liberality. ⁠Well, then, I ventured to say something, didn't I, against the short bunchy skirts and wide bladder-sleeves of the present belles, who seem to make a mock of their grandmothers for aiming to appear tall and slender. ⁠But their heads are dressed more simply, and their characters are altogether more unaffected and natural and unpretending. ⁠Not a jot; such a woman as fourscore years ago would have been seen at a public sale with a wide-flounced farthingale and a lapdog under her arm, bidding for a China mandarin, is now to be met with at a morning lecture, with pencil and note-book in hand, losing two words of the learned professor's discourse for every one she writes down. ⁠Nay, fie upon you for a discourteous knight! Do you come here on the summons of a lady to attend her tea-table, for the express purpose of casting ridicule on the whole sex? ​ ⁠I thank you, Miss Vane, for reminding me of the purpose which brought me here; and the more so, that it is to hold judgment on yourself. But it cannot be done in this informal lazy manner; let every body stand round me, that I may open the proceedings with official decorum. ⁠Present in the court. ⁠You compeer before me, charged with high crimes and misdemeanors committed against the King's liege subject, Sir Cameron Kunliffe, Baronet, tending to the great injury of his character, to the impeding his usefulness in the country, and to the destroying of his influence in social society. ⁠What a wicked creature I must be! But how do you make it to appear against me, my Lord Justice? ⁠It is proved against the defendant, that on the ​10th day of September of the present year, she sent for a certain phrenologist to her house, pretending to know the dispositions of men by certain marks on the surfaces of their pericraniums, and did wittingly and with malice prepense persuade the said Sir Cameron to submit his head to be examined by the said phrenologist. ⁠Wittingly, but not maliciously: had not foolishly been a better word? ⁠Surely you will change the word so far in favour of the defendant. ⁠Not a bit: she wittingly entreated him to run the risk, knowing that there was risk, of losing that which, we are told by high authority, is better than gold. Who will live in amity and confidence with one who is scientifically proved to be predisposed to deeds of cruelty and destruction? Who will be connected with such a one? who will give his daughter in marriage to such a one? who will accept of such a predisposed ruffian for her husband? ⁠But it is all set right now, and has no evil consequences. ​ ⁠I beg your pardon, lady: an evil report and its refutation are no fair match for one another. The first runs far a-field with the pace of a race-horse, the second follows after like a poor cudgelled donkey, and never clears a fourth part of the ground. ⁠You must own, my dear aunt, that this makes against you. I fear you will be obliged to stand in the church porch, with a sheet about you, for defamation. ⁠That would spread evil report the further. ⁠The prosecutor speaks reason; that would be no compensation at all for the injury, and he will not receive it as such. ⁠What can be done, then, Mr. Justice? ⁠When the character of a bachelor is so injured by any woman, that he is, or may be, prevented from finding a suitable mate to solace his days, she is bound—in honour bound—to marry him herself. ⁠A reparation, I believe, which they are ​generally willing to make: I beg pardon; I mean, in most cases. ⁠O dear, dear! how wide you stray from the purpose! ⁠That is as it may afterwards appear, lady. ⁠He has a sinister intention, Miss Vane. ⁠Keep silence in Court, I say.—The sinister intention is on his side, who, for his own interest, would prevent you from being just. But I would not press the matter upon you too severely; the reparation shall be left to your own discretion; but you must decide upon what it is to be, before the Court break up. ⁠Decide so soon! Will not to-morrow do, or the day after to-morrow, or the day after that? ⁠No, neither to-morrow nor any following morrow will do; you must pronounce your own sentence before the Court break up. ​ ⁠O, dear! what can I do? what can I say? how shall I decide? ⁠Shall I decide for you, Madam? ⁠Do, do! good Brightly, and don't tease me any more. ⁠And do you promise to abide by my judgment? ⁠I do promise: and you will be merciful. ⁠Well, then, be it known to all present, that inasmuch as you have nefariously injured the worthy baronet aforesaid, and it is your own indecision that prevents you from making him just reparation for the same, I adjudge that you, from this very time (looking at his watch), shall remain under his command for five minutes and a half, bound afterwards faithfully to fulfil what in this given time he shall decree. ⁠Let it be so; five minutes will soon be over, and he will be merciful. ​ ⁠I fear you will not think so, Madam; for I command you to marry me to-morrow morning, before eleven of the clock. ⁠O, shocking haste and precipitation! Not even a few months allowed to prepare my wedding-clothes! ⁠Not one hour beyond what I have said. ⁠How peremptory you are! ⁠The best quality, my dear aunt, that your husband can have to match with your indecision. ⁠What! are you against me, child? It is not for your interest.

⁠It is for my interest if it be for yours; and let me put this hand, which has always been kind to me, into a stronger hand, that will bear the rule over it in kindness. (Putting the hand of Latitia into that of Sir Cameron, who receives it with gallant respect.) ​

⁠Thanks, gentle Emma; to find a friend in thee is more than I expected. ⁠Ah, Sir Cameron! but you should have expected it. ⁠If he could, without proof, have supposed any one to be good, it should have been this young lady. ⁠But he is too wise for that. ⁠Spare me, spare me; do not mar my present happiness by making me feel how little I deserve it. ⁠And may I be permitted to offer, perhaps, unexpected congratulations? ⁠Yes, thou mayest, and also advise and devise with my solicitor as much as thou wilt. That matter shall be no longer an annoyance to me. ⁠What matter can you possibly allude to? ​ ⁠O! you are quite ignorant of a certain misworded testament, the defects of which, by the management of a clever attorney, might be turned to thine own advantage: thou pleadest ignorant, very ignorant of all this. ⁠Ha, ha, ha! he will be an impudent fellow indeed if he, before my face, plead ignorant of that which he told me without reserve some three or four years ago.

⁠Is it possible? did Hardy betray me then? (To Franklin.)

⁠No; but his clerk employed to copy the deed repeated to me soon after the very passage, word for word. ⁠And thou hast known it all this while, and never sought to take advantage of it till lately? ⁠And you have known me all this while, nay, from my childhood, Sir Cameron, and can yet suppose that I should wish to wrest from you by law what natural justice and the intentions of the testator fairly bestow upon you. ​ ⁠Say whatever you please to me: I am humbled to the dust; my infirmity is crime. ⁠Since you invite us to say whatever we please, I say that your crime has been punished already; for you have been oftener cheated and duped by your own supposed knowledge and your distrust of mankind, than the veriest flaxen-headed simpleton in the parish. ⁠Hold, hold, Brightly; I will not succumb to thee so meekly. If you have any candour, you must acknowledge I had cause for suspicion. Any man would have been startled at the disappearance of that key after the mischievous urchin had been so strangely secreted in my library. ⁠Yes, a very strong circumstance, indeed, to justify all this disturbance. Did not you give me a key to let myself out by the small gate of your shrubbery? ⁠And what has that to do with it? ⁠It would not open the shrubbery-gate, and I ​went round another way. (Giving him a key.) But, perhaps, it might have opened your strong box. I should have returned it to you sooner, had I not learned from your locksmith, that he had already changed the lock of that most secret repository. ⁠The very key, I must, with confusion, acknowledge. Is it possible that I should have taken the wrong key from that corner, and that having given a key to you should have entirely escaped my memory? ⁠Every thing is possible, when the imagination of a suspicious man is concerned.

⁠I am beaten to the ground! I am lower in my own opinion than my worst enemy would have placed me, or even (pointing to Brightly) this good-natured friend.—Dear Latitia, I am sensible of my infirmity; I am incapable of being a good husband to any woman; and though it has long been my ambition to be yours, I remit your engagement and restore you to your liberty.

⁠No, no, no! she is too generous to desert you in your hour of humiliation. ​ ⁠Brightly, you are acting unfairly. You have no right to suggest to the lady what she ought to do. ⁠I don't act unfairly: we were each left at liberty to influence. ⁠What is the meaning of this altercation? ⁠I care not for your paddock. ⁠Nor I for your picture; but let each of them be lost or won fairly.

⁠What, in the name of wonder, are they disputing about? (To Sir Cameron.)

⁠There is a bet in the case, I dare say. ⁠And if there be, your searching fancy will find it out. ⁠It concerns my marriage with Miss Vane; ​tricky fellows! I wish we could contrive to make you both lose. ⁠That is impossible; but at least let us wait till it be absolutely decided. The lady may accept her proffered liberty, or may change her mind, before eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. ⁠Ay, now is my turn to have my infirmity exposed. But it only convinces me that I am a more suitable match for Sir Cameron, who in his state of humiliation, as he calls it, will learn to have patience with me; and I restore to him the hand he has released. ⁠Bravo! they are an equal match, and a happy union may it prove. ⁠Come hither, cousin. You look less happy than I could wish; and happy as I now am, I wish to make myself a little happier. I have said that the thoughts of that bungled deed shall annoy me no more. I cannot part with that small estate upon which my mansion is placed, with its park and ancient oaks around it.—But the full value of the whole you shall receive from me, as soon as proper deeds of conveyance, ​in which there shall be no mistakes, can be made out. ⁠It is too much, cousin; I cannot—I cannot receive it. ⁠Fie upon thee, man! hast thou an infirmity, too,—the infirmity of pride? It will promote my happiness: and it may enable thee, as soon as thou art in the receipt of ninety pounds a year from thy profession, to promote thine own, if thou canst prevail upon some good girl to unite her fate with thine. Dost thou wot of such a one? perhaps thou dost. ⁠Now is the critical moment to strengthen my hopes or my fear. ⁠I see how it is, charming Emma; and may it not encourage me to hope that the engaging child from whose innocent head I cut off this fair ​curl (taking from his breast a paper) some ten years ago, will now, in her womanhood, show me some favour? ⁠You have a very soft voice, Thornhill, but my ears are quick. What is the meaning of these gentle approaches? ⁠Can my memory be so treacherous? Have we ever met before last spring, when I saw you in Brook Street?

⁠Yes, gentle creature, I saw you at your uncle's in Cheshire, where you were my harmless playfellow, and I became, by your own consent, possessed of this cherished token, (turning to Franklin, who goes up to him sternly.) which shall be taken from me only with my life.

⁠Thornhill, thou art making a fool of thyself. The pretty child who was thy playfellow, and on whose head that curl once grew, bears indeed the same name with this lady, is her cousin, and has a strong resemblance to her, but is, I believe, at this moment in Rutlandshire, collecting pretty poesies for her album. Send her one of thy ​sonnets, and thou wilt stand in as great favour with her as ever. ⁠Why did you not tell me this before? ⁠How should I divine all the romantic fancies of thy brain? ⁠I think his patience in giving that restless urchin lessons from Euclid, might have led you pretty near the truth. ⁠To be sure it might have done so, had Nature endowed me with the organ of suspectiveness. ⁠Say no more upon that subject, I beseech you. Any blackguard may henceforth pull my watch from its pocket, and I will only suppose that he wants, as the crowd presses round, to see what it is o'clock, poor youth! ⁠And I will be so constant to my purpose, that the most methodical lady of a parish district may make an appointment with me, and be sure of my being at her door, as her household clock gives warning for the hour. I will not even ​change the colour of a scarf or a top-knot, having once said to my milliner, "It shall be this." ⁠But how long will it be ere you have said so, when all the other colours of the rainbow are laid in array before you? ⁠No more sarcastic insinuations! Sir Cameron and I will endeavour to reform; and a good beginning is equal to half the task, when there are kind friends to give encouragement.

⁠[The Curtain drops.