Page 42 of Trouble

because nobody else deserves it,

Emily

Chapter Fifteen

Aster appeared in the schoolroom the next day.

She didn’t say anything, and Emily didn’t expect her to; the fact that she had actually come to lessons without Emily having to go and hunt her down seemed monumental enough. Captain Edwards must have said something to her – encouragement or threats – although it felt more likely that he had employed the stick rather than the carrot. Whatever the reason, Aster sat down next to Grace at the table and immediately slumped forward, resting her head on her arms and watching Emily out of the corner of her eye.

Attendance did not extend to participation, then.

Emily had been skimming a book on Tudor history before bed, which meant that she was just about equipped to get Grace talking about belligerent kings and their wars. All Grace wanted to talk about was Henry VIII’s wives, with the kind of alarming fascination for violent detail that often presented in children.

‘I would think,’ Grace said enthusiastically, ‘that if you were a man’s second wife called Anne orthirdwife called Catherine, you might start to wonder.’

Aster snorted. ‘If you agreed to be a man’s third wife at all, you have only yourself to blame.’

‘Unfortunately,’ Emily said, trying to encourage this neutral participation without scaring Aster off, ‘the fact of these women’s positions—’

‘Oh, please, do impart some knowledge aboutwomen’s positions,’ said Aster. ‘You are so learned, I can hardly restrain myself from applause.’

Ah, well. So much for that, then.

It was much of the same until luncheon; afterwards, when they both returned, Emily did not bother to try to engage Aster at all. She simply fetched the sketching things and dumped them on the table.

Aster looked suspicious, as if Emily must have some hidden agenda for allowing her to make art rather than discuss gouty kings. Anything that got Aster to stop talking was its own reward.

It worked. Grace chattered away as she drew, telling Emily about the relatives they had gone to visit and how wonderful their elderly Skye terrier was, and Aster picked up her graphite and started making decisive, bold lines on the page. She seemed to be drawing entirely from memory, or perhaps her imagination.

Emily tried not to pay too much attention in case Aster caught her looking and mistook it for interest, but something darkly beautiful was blossoming from under that pencil, and it was the sort of thing you wanted to bear witness to, even if the artistwasprofoundly annoying.

From some angles it looked like a house, from others a ship. When Aster ran out of graphite, Emily placed another within her reach as if by accident, and Aster picked it up without pause and kept drawing.

‘Oh, Aster,’ Grace said, when she came to look over her sister’s shoulder. ‘That is terrifying. I love it.’

‘Thanks,’ Aster said gruffly, going a bit red. ‘Leave off, you’ll smudge it.’

When Grace did sit back down, she fell heavily into her seat, landing slightly off kilter.

‘Grace?’ Emily said sharply.

‘I’m all right!’ Grace said cheerfully, adjusting herself. ‘I suppose I still haven’t mastered the art of sitting, but I have high hopes that I’ll get there before I come out into society. People will look at me and say – there goes Miss Edwards the younger, master of sitting, sitter extraordinaire. People will come from all around to marvel at my seat.’

Now that Emily was looking at her, Grace had the tightly drawn together edges of a person who was onlyattemptingto appear well. She was doing such a strange impression of vigour and good health that the whole thing became uncanny: smile too big, expression too rigid. Hands white at the knuckles where she was pretending to hold casually on to the edge of the table.

Aster was looking, too.

‘We’re done for today,’ Aster said abruptly. ‘Come on.’

She stood up and held a hand out for Grace; Grace didn’t move.

‘I haven’t finished my work of art,’ she said. ‘It’s the latest in my dog series. I am going through somewhat of a canine period.’

‘Later,’ said Aster. ‘Come on, Gracie. Read some of that horrid poetry you like to me while I nap.’

It was obvious that Grace had not been fooled by any of this, but she got up anyway and allowed herself to be accompanied from the room, Aster gently contorting herself so that she could prop her sister up like a scaffold.

Perhaps Emily should have followed to ensure that Grace made it safely into bed, but there was not a doubt in her mind that Aster would take care of her. She knew exactly how that felt – could have told Aster so, let her know that this was something they shared, if Aster weren’t so doggedly committed to being such an interminable arse.