Page 6 of Trouble

Chapter Three

The house continued to be large and objectively impressive. Emily continued to be unimpressed.

The kitchen she was hustled into was less ostentatious, being as it was very concerned with the practicalities of cooking. It was big, and the fireplace was cavernous, but there was nothing particularly glamorous about smoke stains and old pans, even if you had amassed quite a lot of them. Large and grumpy Joe had changed his clothes and immediately taken up residence cutting vegetables, and Emily deduced that he was likely the cook, although she hadn’t met any men in the profession before. She avoided him and his very big knife as she skirted the room and went to lift one of the buckets of water Meera and Akia were preparing for heating.

‘Oh, no, please – you don’t have to do that,’ Meera said quickly.

Emily stopped short. She had made yet another blunder; apparentlygovernesseswould not lower themselves to hauling water. Now that her fingers were already on the handle it was too late to take it back, so she improvised.

‘I’m not afraid of hard work. I think it .?.?. builds character. I want to be useful, in any way I can. Truly.’

Meera exchanged a glance with Akia, and Akia raised her eyebrows back.

‘Well,’ Meera said slowly, ‘weareactually rather short-staffed, so if you’re sure .?.?.’

Her reluctance, as it turned out, was extremely short-lived. Emily helped with the buckets, and then dutifully heaved them into the small servants’ parlour next door, where the bathtub was pulled very close to the fire.

‘Go on,’ said Meera. ‘You were wettest the longest.’

Emily didn’t need telling twice. She soaked for what was probably an impolite length of time and left the water looking positively brackish for the next bather. Her trunk had been delivered to her, so she rummaged inside for a dress and found one that was a rather pretty, muted copper colour, painstakingly mended under the arms so that you could hardly tell it had ever been torn.

One of Amy’s, obviously. None of Emily’s dresses could have been described, even charitably, asrather pretty. Amy was the one who kept her dresses in immaculate condition, and chose with care whenever the opportunity arose to procure one second-hand. She had already been halfway through packing for Fairmont when it became clear that she would not be going, and had insisted that Emily take the trunk and its contents with her instead. Emily felt a brief pang as she put the dress on, and then straightened up and went to face the household.

‘Ah, Amy,’ Meera said as soon as she emerged. Emily faltered, taking a moment to catch up with her lies.Right. Amy must have included her Christian name in her correspondence. Unfortunate. ‘Do you mind if I call you Amy? I’ll show you to your room, and then once you’re situated you can meet the children.’

‘Am I not .?.?. ’ said Emily. ‘I thought I’d be introduced to Captain Edwards.’

She hadnodesireto meet the man really, but the longer she put it off, the more she’d be on edge, looking for uppity gentlemen around every corner. The incident with Oliver the valet had been humiliating enough; she intended to be prepared when she really did meet the master of the house.

‘Captain .?.?. ? But you have already met him,’ said Meera.

This was demonstrably false. The only men Emily had met were Joe the cook, Oliver the valet, and .?.?.

‘Not thegroom?’ said Emily.

Meera looked gently disapproving. ‘He’s certainlynotthe groom. We do nothavea groom any more. Oliver and Captain Edwards share responsibility for the horses.’

‘Oh,’ said Emily. ‘Oh, God. I stepped on him.’

She had, in fact, done worse than that, but she did not want to admit to the housekeeper that she had also enthusiastically insulted him into the bargain.

‘You .?.?. ?’

‘Ah .?.?. I stepped on him. Captain Edwards. I put my foot on him.’

What was it that she had called him? Self-important? And hadn’t heagreed?

It was only what he deserved, really. But the entire point of coming all this way to live in this too-big estate and look after horrid children was tokeepthis position and appropriate what she could from the house until her luck ran out, not to lose it all immediately. They needed this money.Amyneeded this money.

‘Did you do it spontaneously, or did he request it? The foot?’

‘He .?.?. requested it, I suppose.’

‘Well then. No harm done. Now, your room .?.?.’

Emily’s room was at the very end of the first floor, tucked into a corner of the house. It was twice as big as her room at home, with a full-sized dresser and a little desk by the window, upon which somebody had put a vase containing a generous bunch of pink sea thrift. The wallpaper was cheerfully floral, and there was a fire lit under the unadorned white stone mantel.

She was left alone to unpack her things and ‘get her bearings’. The unpacking took all of five minutes, her handful of dresses taking up less than a quarter of the space allotted, and then Emily lay down on the bed to test the mattress and accidentally had half a nap, only occasionally dipping into true unconsciousness, telling herself whenever she surfaced that she was simply resting her eyes.