Page 81 of Trouble

To her surprise, Grace started laughing.

‘What?’

‘It’s funny to me,’ Grace said breathlessly, ‘that you think you wereevernot telling me things plainly. Or that you thought you hid your .?.?. your shorttemper. You are so silly.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Emily said.

She didfeelsomewhat silly, though, and confused – if Grace had seen her for what she was all along, why had she been so willing to love her?

‘You are, I’m afraid,’ said Grace. All of a sudden, her laughter dissolved into tears; Emily was left with emotional whiplash, wondering how she had missed the signs. ‘Oh, goodness. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want to go back downstairs. I don’t want Father to marry Mrs Spencer – I’m sure she’s agreeable enough, but she has barely spoken a word to me. It would be like having a stranger in the house. She came to visit the other day, and then I overheard Akia talking to Meera about it. About how she is going to be my newmother.’

Mrs Spencer. Emily tried not to care, but she felt a stab of something in her chest that snagged and twisted. She was being foolish. What did it matter to her who the captain married, anyway? It was certainly never going to be her, and Mrs Spencer was as good as anyone.

‘You’ll be fine. I was a stranger in the house. You liked me, even though you could apparently tell that I was dreadful from the off.’

‘Dreadful? No, you were never dreadful,’ said Grace. ‘Irascible, perhaps. Curmudgeonly. Cantankerous.’

‘This is not an exercise in vocabulary,’ grumbled Emily.

‘Well,’ Grace said with a wet laugh, ‘you’dhardly recognise it, even if it were. You didn’t teach us anything from the lesson books!’

‘You don’t need teaching,’ said Emily. ‘Well .?.?. notvocabulary, anyway. But clearly you have a lot to learn about common sense.’

‘I will come down when I’m ready,’ Grace said, a little sniffily, before leaning into misery again. ‘Amy, I am tired of everything being so hard. I miss mama. And .?.?. I do not want to be ill. I do not want illness to be the first and last thing everybody sees when they look at me. I do not want to havelimits, when I am only fourteen! I should be running about like a spring lamb. I should be .?.?. I don’t know. What ifIwant to sneak down to the caves to meet girls from the village and drink spirits? How will I do that, if there’s a chance I won’t make it up the hill again?’

‘Has Aster been doing that again?’ Emily asked, briefly amused despite herself.

Grace sighed, and nodded.

‘Well, I have no doubt that he’ll volunteer to carry you, if you really do want to spend your evenings on a cold beach running your reputation into the ground. Your father, however, wouldnotbe amused.’

‘Amy—’

‘Emily,’ said Emily, more gently than she thought herself capable of being. ‘My name is Emily. My younger sister is called Amy. She’s the one who was supposed to be your governess, and she would have done an absolutely marvellous job of it. She wouldn’t have had screaming matches with Aster, or allowed swearing in the schoolroom.Shewould have done vocabulary exercises. But she’s .?.?. She’s been unwell, too, for quite a long time, so she couldn’t make it. I came in her place. But Amy iswonderful, Grace, and being ill .?.?. It is usually the last thing you notice about her. Everybody loves her. She is kind, intelligent, wickedly funny .?.?. She never turns away a person in need .?.?. Sheadoreschildren, which I have never understood and never will. Do not look at me like that, Grace – of course I likeyou, but youare barely a child any more, you talk like you’re fifty years old. I’d trust you to run the country. Anyway .?.?. I won’t pretend to understand how you’re feeling, but please just know that I do not think of you asGrace, who is ill, and neither does anybody else in this house. I think of you as .?.?. Grace, who is always open to making a new friend, who is quick-witted and an enormous pain in the neck, with an alarming passion for the frivolities of fashion and a wicked side she pretends does not exist. And .?.?. yes, besides those things, you are also ill.’

‘Emily?’ Grace said slowly. ‘Your name is Emily?’

‘Yes,’ said Emily, feeling her shoulders lighten. ‘It is.’

‘Was everything else you’ve said to me true?’ said Grace, very seriously.

She was searching Emily’s eyes, intent, leaving Emily no room to escape.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Well .?.?. if you ever found me amenable or pleasant, that was me doing my best impression of my sister. And .?.?. I am not really a governess. I worked in a mill before I came here. But otherwise .?.?. I imagine so, yes.’

‘All right,’ said Grace, taking a deep breath and wiping her face delicately with her fingers.

There was a long pause before she spoke, and Emily could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. She was struck by the thought that she very desperately wanted Grace to know all this, and love her anyway.

‘Emily,’ Grace said again. ‘I believe you. Despite what you might think, youhavebeen a good governess, you know. The best I’ve ever had. And .?.?. and I think I’d like to go downstairs.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

‘But I don’t understand.’ Meera was standing by the fire, arms crossed, her face a kindly puzzle, but a puzzle nonetheless. ‘You are not who I was corresponding with?’

‘No,’ said Emily.

She was sitting at the kitchen table with an untouched cup of tea in front of her, the household staff gathered around, staring at her as if she were on trial. Joe, at least, wasn’t staring. Hewaschopping things aggressively, though, with the unspoken implication that after the radishes, she might be next.