Speed Dating Events

One man who most uncharacteristically takes it at a jump is Mr Knightley, in Jane Austen’s Emma. Knightley is nothing but grave and circumspect when it comes to other people’s affairs, but when it comes to his own moment, it sort of steals up behind him and pushes him over the edge.

This proposal comes as a great surprise to both participants, since the lucky recipient herself does not see it coming. Emma is convinced that Mr Knightley is going to tell her off, as he has been a stern recording angel of her minor follies and vanities. So when she senses that Mr Knightley is on the brink of something, ‘her immediate feeling was to avert the subject if possible.’

But like murder, love will out:

Emma could not bear to give him pain . . . cost her what it would, she would listen . . .

‘I stopped you ungraciously just now, Mr Knightley. If you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of anything you have in contemplation — as a friend indeed you may command me. I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think.’

‘As a friend!’ repeated Mr Knightley. ‘Emma, that I

fear is a word — No, I have no wish. Stay, yes, why should I hesitate? I have gone too far already for concealment. Emma, I accept your offer, extraordinary as it may seem, and refer myself to you as a friend. Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?’

He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowered her.

‘My dearest Emma,’ said he, for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma — tell me at once. Say “no” if it is to be said.’ She could really say nothing. ‘You are silent!’ he cried, with^- great animation; ‘absolutely silent! At present I ask no more.’

Emma was ready to sink under the agitation of the moment . .

With all these misunderstandings and difficulties, you can see why people will often try to back away from the big moment. Some will even rely on others to do it for them. Pop singer Cilla Black has had only one manager, Bobby Willis, for years. Suddenly they married, spurred on by a third party. As Cilla tells it with her bouncy Liverpudlian humour:

We were in a restaurant after a TV show, and we were having a row about something or other. A friend said we sounded just like man and wife, and asked why we didn’t get wed. So we did!

And they have lived happily ever after.

Even when a girl is a little more prepared than Emma, she will not necessarily be any more at home with this great mystery. The idea may have been around, but the moment will still take her by surprise. Many writers have seen the warm comic potential of a man and woman in love who join hands and make the leap marriage-wards together, almost without knowing how they’ve done it. A dearly-loved American classic in this vein is The Courtin’, a specimen of ‘Down East Humour’ that was popular in the nineteenth century — though about as far removed from Jane Austen’s world as it is possible to be:

Zekle crep’ up quite unbeknown An’ peeked in through the winder. An’ there sot Huldy, quite alone, With no-one nigh to hinder.

She heered a foot, an’ knowed it too, A-raspin’ on the scraper —

All ways to once her feelins flew Like sparks to burnt up paper.

Huldy has a pretty good idea what Zekle has come for. Her heart goes out to him as he ‘kinda loiters’ on the mat, won’t come in, and she can hear his heart thumping right across the room. But she doesn’t want to seem too easy, and so resorts to a provoking indifference:

`You want to see my Pa, I spose?’

`Wal . . no . . .l come designin” — ‘To see my Ma? She’s sprinklin’ cloes Agin tomorrer’s i’nin’

Says he, `I’d better call agin;’

Says she, ‘Think likely, Mister.’ That last word pricked him like a pin, An’ . . . wal, he up an’ kilt her!

Then her red come up like the tide, Down to the Bay o’ Fundy.

An’ all I know is, they wuz cried In meetin’ come nex’ Sunday!

So a marriage has been arranged. Zekle has asked Huldy, and she has accepted him. But the mystery persists. How did he do it? What did she say? To these perennial questions let the inimitable Jane Austen have the last word, on Emma’s reaction to Mr Knightley’s proposal:

What did she say? Just what she ought, of course. A lady always does. Of course!

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