Page 29 of Trouble

She returned to an empty schoolroom, as Grace had also gone for luncheon, and used the time to sort ruthlessly through the art supplies to give her hands something to do that wasn’t wringing Aster’s neck. All of the paintbrushes were very old, the bristles bent and pressed into odd shapes, as if somebody had bought them all new at the same time and never thought to replace them. The paints weren’t in much better shape; they smelled musty and were crumbly to the touch, leaving little chalky stains on the desk and on Emily’s fingers when she wasn’t careful enough handling them.

A lot of things in the schoolroom seemed frozen in time, and it only took Emily half an hour of tidying to realise why: nothing had been bought new for the children in the four years since their mother had died. She was sure Meera would be horrified to learn this – that she would have sent away for new things at once if she’d known – but it must have just been one of those things that had been accidentally neglected as the house became more difficult to run. Mrs Edwards had clearly been the one to make sure her daughters had new paintbrushes and books, and her husband had not stepped up to shoulder the responsibility in the past few years. He probably thought children entertained themselves with games of fetch or skeins of wool.

She’d make sure to tell Meera about the paint, to see if they could send for some more. Even if Aster certainly did not deserve it, it would do for Grace – and besides, it was what Amy would have done.

Actually, Amy would have travelled into the village and found out exactly where to procure new supplies, and likely blown all of her own wages on them, but Emily was not feeling quitethatcommitted to her role.

That afternoon, Grace returned from luncheon looking cowed and listless.

‘I was thinking Shakespeare,’ Emily said.

She had stacked up the volumes of collected works on the table; Grace picked one up from the top, glanced it over and then put it back again.

‘Very good,’ she said, sitting down. Emily waited for the rest, but apparently her sentence was finished.

‘Which one?’ said Emily. ‘You choose.’

‘Oh, I really don’t mind. Whichever contains the least horrid father.’

Ah. Emily wrinkled her nose, then sat down across the table.

‘Potentially impossible. Shakespeare loved a horrid father. Although at least yours hasn’t ordered your execution. Unless that’s what happened at luncheon.’

Grace blinked at her, and then sighed. ‘No. And .?.?. nothing really happened. I am the one being dreadful. Father isn’t horrid. Please, forget I said anything.’

‘I see.’

‘I mean .?.?. I just thought .?.?. No, same as always, really.’

‘All right,’ Emily said slowly. She didn’t know how to do this; providing comfort to children let down by their parents was not in her wheelhouse. She cringed away from the expectation internally, as if it were something cloying and sticky. The best she could offer was, ‘Hamlet? His father is vexing, but at least he’s dead.’

‘Hamletit is,’ said Grace.

The Edwards siblings seemed to be suffering from contrary afflictions: Grace too desperate to win her father’s approval, and Aster attempting the exact opposite. The root of the problem was the same, but they were each giving their emotional responses their own personal flair.

Emily often found herself repeating, in her mind, that it was absolutely none of her business. She could not sell ‘father is emotionally distant with his children’ to Charles when she next met him at the pub. It also seemed unlikely that noticing Aster sneaking around with Oliver would lead anywhere fruitful, but she knew she’d keep an eye on the valet from now on, just in case.

That night after dinner, when Akia offered her a drink – the implication being that she might actually stay seated with them long enough to drink it – she accepted.

Nobody made a fuss about it, to her great relief. They simply poured an extra glass of wine and passed it down the table.

‘I simply do not think he’s going to propose,’ Oliver said. ‘But I’ve been saying that all along.’

‘Oliver,’ Meera said reprovingly. ‘This is not a game for you to place bets on. This is Captain Edwards’s private business.’

‘They went outside to “look at the gardens” for a while after dinner,’ said Akia. ‘I thought he might do it then. But he just looked a bit .?.?. scared of her.’

‘When?’ said Oliver.

‘Hmmm?’

‘When were they standing outside?’

Emily watched his expression carefully. He was aiming for neutrality and only missing by an inch or two.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Around eleven o’clock? I was going to bed. I’d be frightened of her, too .?.?. She puts me in mind of Salome, hungry for a head.’

Joe looked up from his drink. ‘Salome didn’t eat John the Baptist’s head.’