Page 84 of Trouble

Of course he would think he was offering her something wonderful: a dalliance with him; empty promises of matrimony. Emily just wasn’t foolish enough to believe it would ever end well for somebody like her. Even if Captain Edwards did prove to be the ridiculous sort of romantic who’d try to do right by her – next to impossible – Charles from the Rose and Crown could put a stop to any happiness as soon as it dared to bloom.

‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that I have once again misconstrued the situation. I will let it rest. But I will not rescind my invitation for you to stay. Grace and Aster would like to continue their education with you.’

‘What education?’ Emily said derisively.

‘Grace has never been allowed to spend so long reading the books she is truly interested in,’ Captain Edwards said, his voice like cut glass now. ‘And Aster has been enjoying spending time focused on his painting. I have high hopes that he might benefit from the proximity to you and Grace and absorb some knowledge accidentally.’

‘If he learns anything from me,’ said Emily, ‘it certainly will be an accident.’

‘Stop trying to talk everybody in this house out of wanting you,’ Captain Edwards said sharply. ‘Will you stay or not?’

He’d be married sooner rather than later, Emily thought suddenly. He was clearly desperate for companionship, and now that she had rebuffed his farce of an offer, he’d marry Augusta Spencer and the children would have somebody mother-shaped again and wouldn’t need her. It might only take a month – two, at most.

Another two months’ wages was hard to refuse. Amy was doing better, but there was no saying whether it would last, or how long it would be before she could work again. Charles might know her real name, but now so did everybody in Fairmont – perhaps, with less ammunition to use against her, and with no more information forthcoming from Emily, he would divert his energy elsewhere. Perhaps he thought her a fool, incapable of following basic directions to a desk drawer, and no longer a worthy partner in crime. Perhaps he had given up on the whole endeavour entirely. Once Mrs Spencer was the new Mrs Edwards, she could cut herself free from this place without anybody coming to drag her back again.

‘I will stay a little while longer,’ said Emily, and Captain Edwards nodded. He seemed reluctant to speak again, as if by opening his mouth he might scare her away. Presumably, she was dismissed.

She got up immediately and went from the room, hearing what sounded like an abrupt, exasperated sigh as she closed the door behind her.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

‘Oh, look,’ said Oliver, when Emily returned to the kitchen. ‘It’s Emily the liar! Have a drink.’

It was barely evening, certainly not the end of the working day, but Meera didn’t seem to mind. She was, in fact, also holding a glass of wine.

‘Are you double-dismissed?’ Oliver said cheerfully, handing Emily a drink while she stood frozen by the table, feeling wrong-footed and confused.

‘I .?.?. I was never dismissed,’ she said haltingly. ‘I left of my own accord.’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said Oliver. ‘Now, I know you’re a sensitive soul, open and loving and prone to hysterics, but do try to keep a stiff upper lip – we have something for you.’

‘Something for me?’ said Emily, wary.

‘Oh, it’s not much. Oliver, you shouldn’t have said anything,’ said Meera crossly. ‘We just thought .?.?. Oliver told us what you said, about leaving, and we thought you might be going tomorrow, so we pulled together some .?.?. for you and your sister, you know, because she hasn’t been well .?.?. It’s not much, but—’

‘For God’s sake, Meera,’ said Akia. ‘You’re downplaying it so much she’s going to expect a turd in a basket. It’s just some food and things.’

Meera put down her drink and went to fetch it.

It wasnotjust some food and things. It was an enormous basket overflowing with supplies.

‘I told Captain Edwards I didn’t want any—’

‘Ben isn’t getting the credit for this,’ Oliver said scornfully. ‘Wedid this. Don’t pull that face at me, Meera – I amnotgoing to do a good deed and not be lauded for it. I am onlyinit for the lauding.’

Emily reached for the basket, running her hand over the things inside. Her fingers landed on some hand-made mittens, and she thought of Amy’s cold, narrow fingers by the fire in winter, the way that she could never quite get them warm, as if her blood had better places to be.

She burst into tears.

It was the most mortifying thing that had ever happened to her, and she immediately tried to get up and leave, but Meera came to envelop her in a hug and she found herself trapped there, sobbing a wet patch on to the housekeeper’s shoulder.

‘There, there,’ Meera said, rubbing her back, ‘it’s all right. Nobody’s looking.’

‘I’m looking,’ said Oliver. ‘Jesus Christ, I was joking about the hysterics, Emily.’

‘Shut up, Oliver,’ Akia said pleasantly. ‘Have another drink.’

Emily wished they wouldn’t insist on being so kind to her – even Oliver, in his own way, although it might have looked like pure belligerence to anybody else. It was unbearable. She wasn’t crying just because of Captain Edwards, or the gift basket, or even the niggling worry of Charles at the Rose and Crown – it was thetoo-much-ness of it all: the unendurable weight of everything, the thought of Amy exclaiming in delight over those mittens and wearing them until they wore out, if they were all very lucky, and the knowledge that even if life was hard and devastating and unfair, Emily would have to get back up and endure it anyway. She had neverstoppedenduring it; her worry about the Laurence family’s survival was a constant background hum that plagued her days and her nights equally, and she was so very tired of it all.