Page 16 of Trouble

While her father had been alive, some part of Emily had always believed that she would be all right. Nothing truly bad had happened to her, and even when times were lean, they had always been able to make do. After Mr Laurence died, however, and their mother spent most of her time weeping and decidedly did not attempt to find matches or situations for either of them – and after it turned out that the pleasant young man Amy had been gazing at across the packed halls of dances had a father, too, and that he was in fact one of the people Mr Laurence had been in a lot of debt to – things became much .?.?. darker. The world narrowed. Possibilities were no longer endless, and it became clear they never really had been. Nobody wanted to marry one of Mr Laurence’s daughters. Life was a mine shaft with no bottom, and if you took a misstep, you could trip over the edge and keep falling forever.

Emily had determined not to care about her lack of marriage prospects, but she knew it hurt Amy – Amy, who was so kind and funny and beautiful, and would have made somebody a wonderful wife. It was horribly unfair.

They sold their house, which had not been particularly lavish in the first place, and moved somewhere even smaller. Mrs Laurence was able to pay off a few debts, but the amount owed was so vast, it was like spitting into a well in the hope of eventually filling it. Their fortunes dwindled. Mrs Laurence became a sort-of seamstress, when she remembered, picking up jobs here and there. Emily and Amy held out for two years, and then they faced the reality of their new situation and went to work.

Looking back on that time in her life, Emilylikedto think that she had simply squared her shoulders and walked straight to the mill without hesitation, but if she was honest with herself, it hadn’t been quite that simple. She had tried to find work elsewhere at first. She had avoided the mill, had turned her head when she walked past, as if just by looking at it she might be sucked in like a mouse down a drain.

Eventually, she had given in. Her mother had emerged from her stupor long enough to be horrified, which had actually helped harden Emily’s resolve to see it through. It was taking far too long to find decent positions, and she knew that if she started earning a wage – meagre as it was – it would buy Amy a little more time to find something more suitable.

The argument that had ensued with her sister was quite possibly the worst they’d ever had, but once Amy understood that Emily’s mind was made up, that was that.

It had been worth it, in the end, when Amy had become a governess for the Turners, which was what she had wanted from the moment they started discussing the possibility of work, while lying under the blankets of their shared bed. Their parting had been painful, but Emily had put on a brave face and smiled and told her sister that she should fill her pockets with sweets, in case she needed to throw them as a distraction and run, and that she should draw little marks on the children at her new house if she had trouble telling them apart.

When Amy fell ill, Emily tried to call her home and forbid her from working at all, but Amy could not countenance the idea of sitting by the fire sewing with her mother while Emily worked long days among the looms. The work at the mill was bitterly hard. Her peers were other tired, hard-faced women and the young boys who had not yet been elevated to true mill hands. The girls who worked there were never offered such a station. They mostly moved on at some point, because their bodies were exhausted or because they were no longer suited to the factory floor.

Emily did not move on. Work was still scarce, and she had nowhere else to go.

She was sure, in the same dogged, unshakeable way she clung to all of her truths, that Amy would have returned to full health if she hadn’t refused to slow down or come home to rest. Amy argued that the money was too good, and that it was not as if she was working as hard as Emily; in the end, she had only come home when it was truly impossible for her to continue. Emily did not ask what exactly had precipitated this realisation, but she saw the concern with which Mr Turner delivered her personally from his carriage back into Emily’s care.

It had seemed that Amy might be well enough to work again just as the position at Fairmont House became available. It paid even better than the Turners had, and she had written to enquire at once. They could not afford to lose Fairmont, even when Amy took a turn and clearly could not go.

This was why Emily had to be far more careful and not let her temper take the reins. She had to think like Amy, talk like Amy,breathelike Amy – at least until she was named an incompetent or a fraud and sent away.Amyhadn’t let the world harden her. Amy was kind, even when life wasn’t kind to her.

Emily couldn’t be soft or sweet or kind, but she could try to remember who she had been at eighteen, and who she might have become if it hadn’t all gone so wrong.

At breakfast the morning after Emily’s first successful theft, Akia turned to her and handed her a thick wedge of firm, yellowish fruit.

‘It’s pineapple,’ she said. ‘Have you tried it?’

‘No,’ Emily said, her mind fuzzy from a night with too little sleep. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘I know a man,’ Akia said, winking at her. ‘Not really. I mean, Idoknow a man, but there’s nothing untoward about it. He has connections to a house with a pinery. And he owes me a favour, because of the time he almost ran me down in his wagon, and I was only saved because the horses were startled by a seagull and swerved at the last second.’

‘A seagull?’ Emily said faintly.

‘Yes. Anyway, that’s not important. A favour was in order. That favour is now half a pineapple.’

‘But why are you giving it to me?’ said Emily, perplexed.

‘You looked dead,’ said Akia. ‘You know – on the inside. And it tricked you into talking to me. Eat it before it browns.’

Ignoring this indictment of her looks, Emily did. The pineapple was deliciousandhurt her tongue, which was interesting enough to entertain her until Akia started clearing the plates. She found herself actually listening to the idle chatter between the servants; watching Oliver pack his pipe while telling Meera about an argument with the horse veterinarian that had almost resulted in fisticuffs; noticing that Joe winced when he bent to poke at the fire, his hand going to his back.

The morning passed without incident, Grace being well behaved enough that Emily sometimes forgot she was there at all.

When she returned to the schoolroom after luncheon, she discovered that Aster had deigned to join them, which dampened her mood instantly.

‘Thank you for joining us, Aster,’ she said, which she thought was very big of her, considering.

Aster just glared at her.

‘I think we will have a splendid afternoon,’ said Grace, apparently immune to the glare.

‘I did consider driving a nail into my hand very, very slowly instead,’ said Aster, ‘but this was preferable only because I could not locate a hammer.’

‘There’s one in the kitchen,’ Emily said, before she could stop herself.

Aster tried to behave as if she hadn’t heard this, but the slight upward jolt of her eyebrows betrayed her.