Page 48 of Trouble

He said all of this tentatively, as if Emily might be about to scoff at him and tell him that this was a ridiculous endeavour.

‘I think that sounds .?.?. good,’ she said instead, very carefully.

‘Yes?’ he said, looking at her properly.

‘Yes.’

He let out a long breath. ‘Fine. Good. All right.’

They walked down the garden slowly, Captain Edwards intermittently pointing out the places where the plants would have to be removed completely, suggesting what he might put there instead. That the plentiful asters were to remain seemed to go without saying. He did not really need Emily’s input – she knew less about gardening than she did the rules of etiquette – but it seemed enough just that she was listening.

‘Joe does a little out here when he can,’ he said, when they were walking back up the other side. ‘But he hardly has the time, and I would never ask him to do more. He planted zinnias on the end here, but they won’t be back .?.?. These, though, the black-eyed Susans .?.?.’

He winced very slightly with his unblemished eye and his bruised one, clearly regretting his choice of words.

‘It is hardly noticeable,’ Emily lied.

‘Unless you look,’ said Captain Edwards.

‘Oliver said you were fighting for somebody’s honour.’

The captain grimaced.

‘No? So it was just recreational boxing, was it?’

‘Somebody said something .?.?. unkind.’

‘About who?’

‘Oliver, actually.’

‘So you were fighting forOliver’s honour,’ Emily said, more pleased than she should have been.

‘Not quite how I would put it,’ said Captain Edwards.

‘What were they saying about Oliver?’

‘Nothing worth repeating,’ said the captain. ‘People often do seem veryconcernedwith each other’s private lives in a way that .?.?. Well, I have never understood it.’

Emily shrugged. ‘Nor have I. It is not my business what anybody else does, in the same way that it is nottheirbusiness what I might do. I cannot abide gossip. There are far more pressing things to be concerned about.’

Captain Edwards studied her closely before he replied – so closely that Emily began to feel a little alarmed.

‘Yes. Well .?.?. Indeed.’ He hesitated. ‘Last night .?.?. I am not sure that I .?.?. that I behaved particularly—’

‘Please,’ said Emily. ‘Don’t mention it.’ She was very happy to put everything that had happened in the dark of the kitchen behind her. ‘You were saying something about .?.?. zinnias?’

‘Yes,’ said Captain Edwards, visibly relieved. ‘I thought we might try them again, when the frost thaws .?.?.’

It wasn’t so bad, just listening to him talk about flowers. Around half an hour had passed when he realised that she should have been back in the schoolroom, and he sent her off with profuse apologies, much more at ease than he had been when they had started out into the garden.

Emily discovered that it was not such a nightmare having Aster in the schoolroom, as long as she was almost entirely left to her own devices. There was still the occasional remark – a jab at Emily’s dress, something cutting about her expertise in whatever they were reading that day – but if Aster had pencil or paintbrush in her hand, she was too distracted to give her all to the job of pestering Emily.

A week passed like this without incident. Emily strode about the schoolroom all day, and then sat awash in the familiar chatter around the dining table at night. Sometimes she smoked Oliver’s pipe, when it was passed to her. Other times she had a few too many glasses of wine and laughed openly at Akia’s stories, or volunteered some part of her day up to Meera without much digging.

She had no more news for Charles at the Rose and Crown, and it did nag at the back of her mind – but she did have wages tucked under the mattress in her room, salve for her hands that had simply appeared one day on her bedside table, and two expensive trinkets buried on the beach for when the time came.

Seven days after Aster returned to the schoolroom, she left a painting on the table instead of squirrelling it away in her room as she usually did. She had titled itDeath of the Governess, and probably thought it very threatening. It depicted someone who looked suspiciously like Emily in the process of violently drowning.