Cardington Crescent

3

EMILY WOKE VERY early in the morning, even before the housemaids were up, and reviewed the situation. Last night’s crisis had swept away the paralysis of indecision, the fending off of the knowledge which she knew must come with all its misery. She made a resolution. She would fight! Sybilla was not going to win simply because Emily had neither the wit nor the strength to give her a battle, however far it had gone. And she was obliged to admit, briefly and painfully, that it had probably gone all the way—witness George’s alacrity in provoking an excuse to sleep in the dressing room. Even so, Emily would use every skill she possessed to win him back. And she had a great deal of skill. After all, she had won him in the first place, against considerable odds.

If she were to continue to appear as wretched as she felt, she would embarrass the rest of the household and lay herself open to a pity that would not comfortably be forgotten, even when the affair was over and she had won. Most important, it would not be in the least attractive to George; like most men he loved a gay and charming woman who had enough sense to keep her troubles to herself. An excess of emotion, especially in public, would make him acutely uncomfortable. Far from winning him away from Sybilla, it would drive him further into her arms.

Therefore, Emily would act the role of her life. She would be so utterly charming and delightful George would find Sybilla a pale copy, a shadow, and Emily again the true substance.

For three days she kept up her charade without noticeable failure. If she felt close to weeping again she was sure no one else saw it—except perhaps Great-aunt Vespasia, who saw everything. But she did not mind that. Behind the ineffable elegance and the radical humor, Aunt Vespasia was the one person who cared for her.

However, it had proved so difficult at times she was all but overcome with the futility of it. She was bound to fail. She knew her voice sounded flat, her smile must be sickly. But since there was nothing else with any hope of success, after a moment’s solitude—perhaps merely in walking from one room to another—she had renewed her effort, trying with every strength she possessed to be amusing, considerate, and courteous. She even forced herself to be civil to old Mrs. March, although she could not resist exercising her wit on her in her absence, to the rather exuberant laughter of Jack Radley.

By dinner on the third day it was becoming extremely difficult. They were all most formally dressed, Emily in pale green, Sybilla in indigo, sitting round the monstrous mahogany table in the dining room. Rust red velvet curtains, heavily swagged and draped, and too many pictures on the wall made Emily feel suffocated. It was almost unendurable to force the smile to her lips, to dredge up from a weary and fearful imagination some light and flippant remark. She pushed the food round her plate without eating and sipped more and more wine.

She must not do anything as obvious as flirting with William; that would be seen as retaliation—even by George, uninterested as he was—and certainly by everyone else. Old Mrs. March’s needle eyes missed nothing. She had been a widow forty years, presiding over her domestic kingdom with a will of iron and an insatiable curiosity. Emily must be equally entertaining, equally delightful to everyone—including Sybilla—as befitted a woman of her position, even if it choked her. She was careful not to cap other people’s stories, and to laugh while meeting their eyes, so as to appear sincere.

She searched for the appropriate compliment, just truthful enough to be believed, and listened with attention to Eustace’s interminably boring anecdotes about his athletic exploits when younger. He was a great and vociferous believer in “a healthy mind in a healthy body” and had no time for aesthetes. His disappointment was implicit in every phrase, and watching William’s tense face across the table, Emily found it increasingly hard to hold her peace and keep her expression composed in polite interest.

After the sweet, with nothing left on the table but vanilla ice, raspberry water and a little fruit, Tassie said something about a soirée she had been to, and how bored she had been, which earned her a look of disgust from her grandmother. It struck a sudden chord of memory in Emily. She looked across at Jack Radley with a tiny smile.

“They can be fearful,” she agreed. “On the other hand, they can also be superb.”

Tassie, who was on the same side of the table and could not see Emily’s face, was unaware of her mood. “This was a large soprano singing rather badly,” she explained. “And so terribly serious.”

“So was the best one I’ve ever been to.” Emily felt the memory sharper in her mind as the scene came back to her. “Charlotte and I once took Mama. It was marvelous ...”

“Indeed?” Mrs. March said coldly. “I had no idea you were musical.”

Emily continued to keep a sweet expression, ignoring the implication, and stared straight at Jack Radley. With a stinging pleasure she knew that she had his attention as deeply as she would like to have had George’s, and with precisely the same nature of excitement.

“Go on!” he urged. “Whatever can be marvelous about an overweight soprano singing earnestly and badly?”

William shivered. Like Tassie, he was thin and sensitive, with vividly red hair, although his was darker and his features sharper, etched with an inner pain that had not yet touched her.

Emily recounted it exactly as it had been. “She was a large lady, very ardent, with a pink face. Her gown was beaded and fringed practically everywhere, so that it shivered when she moved. Miss Arbuthnot was playing the pianoforte for her. She was very thin, and wearing black. They huddled together for several minutes over the music, and then the soprano came forward and announced that she would sing ‘Home Sweet Home,’ which as you know is heavy and extremely sentimental. Afterwards, to cheer us up, she would give us Yum-Yum’s delightful, lighthearted song from The Mikado, ‘Three Little Maids.’ “

“Much better,” Tassie agreed. “That goes along at a lovely pace. Although she hardly sounds like my idea of Yum-Yum.” And she hummed a bar or two cheerfully.

“‘Marvelous’ is overstating it rather a lot,” Eustace said critically. “Good song ruined.”

Emily ignored him. “She faced us all,” she continued, “composed her features into lines of deep emotion, and began slowly and very solemnly with a blast of sentiment—only the piano bounded away with the trills and twitters of a rollicking rhythm!”

Only Jack Radley’s face registered understanding.

“‘Be it ever so hu-u-mble,’” Emily mimicked sonorously, at once savage and doleful.

“Da-di-di-dum-dum, da da dee-ee,” Jack sang with delight.

“Oh no!” Tassie’s eyes lit with joy, and she started to giggle. Sybilla joined in, and even Eustace smiled in spite of himself.

“They trailed off, scarlet-faced,” Emily said enthusiastically. “The soprano stammered her apologies, wheeled round, and charged to the piano, where Miss Arbuthnot was fumbling wildly through sheets of music, scattering them to the floor. They gathered them all up, muttering fiercely together and wagging their fingers at each other, while we all sat and tried to pretend we had not really noticed. Nobody said anything, and Charlotte and I dared not look at each other in case we lost control. Finally they came to some agreement, new music was set up on the piano, and the soprano advanced purposefully to the front of the floor again and faced us. She took an enormous breath, her beads jangled at her throat and all but broke, and with tremendous aplomb she began a spirited rendition: ‘Three Little Maids from school are we, filled to the brim with girlish glee’ ...” She hesitated a moment, staring straight into Jack Radley’s dark blue eyes. “Unfortunately Miss Arbuthnot was crashing out the ponderous chords of ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ with a look of intense longing on her face.”

This time even the old lady’s mouth twitched. Tassie was helpless with giggles, and everyone else chortled with pleasure.

“They struggled on for a full three minutes,” Emily said finally, “getting louder and louder, trying to outdo each other, till the chandeliers rattled. Charlotte and I couldn’t bear it any longer. We stood up at precisely the same moment and fled through the chairs, falling over people’s feet, till we collided in the doorway and almost fell outside, clasping each other. We gave way and laughed till we cried. Even Mama, when she caught up with us, didn’t have the heart to be angry.”

“Oh, how that takes me back!” Vespasia said with a broad smile, dabbing at the tears on her cheeks. “I’ve been to so many ghastly soirees. Now I shall never be able to listen to an earnest soprano again without thinking of this! There are so many fearful singers I should like such a thing to happen to—it would be such a mercy for the rest of us.”

“So should I,” Tassie agreed. “Starting with Mr. Beamish and his songs of pure womanhood. I suppose with a little foresight it could be arranged?” she added hopefully.

“Anastasia!” Mrs. March said, with ice in her voice. “You will do nothing of the sort. It would be quite irresponsible, and in the worst possible taste. I forbid you even to entertain the idea.”

But Tassie’s smile remained radiant, her eyes faraway and shining.

“Who is Mr. Beamish?” Jack Radley asked curiously.

“The vicar,” Eustace said frostily. “You heard his sermon on Sunday.”

Great-aunt Vespasia smothered a deep gurgle in her throat and began to take the stones out of her grapes assiduously with a silver knife and fork, placing them with elegant fingers on the side of her plate.

Mrs. March waited impatiently. At last she stood up, rustling her skirts noisily and tweaking the tablecloth so the silver rattled, and George snatched at a swaying glass and caught it just as it overbalanced.

“It is time the ladies withdrew,” she announced loudly, fixing first Vespasia and then Sybilla with a stony stare. She knew Tassie and Emily would not dare disobey.

Vespasia rose to her feet with the grace she had never lost; the air of moving at precisely her own speed, and the rest of the world might follow or not, as it chose. Reluctantly, the others rose also: Tassie demure; Sybilla svelte, smiling over her shoulder at the men; Emily with a sinking feeling inside her, a taste of Pyrrhic victory fast losing its savor.

“I’m sure something could be contrived,” Aunt Vespasia said quietly to Tassie. “With a little imagination.”

Tassie looked confused. “About what, Grandmama?”

“Mr. Beamish, of course!” Vespasia snapped. “I have longed for years to take that fatuous smile off his face.”

They swept past Emily, side by side, whispering, and on into the withdrawing room. Spacious and cool in pale greens, it was one of the few rooms in the house Olivia March had been permitted to redecorate from the old lady’s taste, which was dictated at a time when the weight of one’s furniture indicated the worthiness and sobriety of one’s life. Later, fashion had changed, and status and novelty became the criteria. But Olivia’s taste flowered during the Oriental period, around the International Exhibition of 1862, and the withdrawing room was gentle, full of soft colors and with only sufficient furniture to afford comfort, quite unlike old Mrs. March’s boudoir. The other downstairs sitting room was all hot rose pinks, with drapes over mantel and piano, and jardinières, photographs, and antimacassars.

Emily followed them and took her seat, after offering token assistance to old Mrs. March. She must keep up the act every moment until she was alone in her room. Women especially notice everything; they would observe the least flicker of expression or intonation of the voice, and they would interpret it with minute understanding.

“Thank you,” Mrs. March said tersely, rearranging her skirts to fall more elegantly and patting her hair. It was thick and mouse gray, elaborately coifed in a fashion common thirty years before, during the Crimean War. Emily wondered fleetingly how long it had taken the maid to dress it like that. There was not a wisp out of place, nor had there been at breakfast or luncheon. Perhaps it was a wig? She would love to have knocked it and found out.

“So kind of you,” Mrs. March went on. “Too many young people have lost the consideration one would wish.” She looked at no one in particular, but the tightening at the corners of her mouth betrayed an irritation that was not in the least impersonal. Emily knew Tassie was going to receive a curt lecture on the duties of a good daughter the moment they were alone, foremost among them being obedience and attention to one’s betters—and doing everything possible in aiding one’s family to obtain for one a suitable marriage. At the very minimum one positively did not get in the way of such efforts. And Sybilla also would come in for some grim correction.

Emily smiled warmly back at her, even if it was amusement disguised, not sympathy. “I daresay they are merely preoccupied,” she said sententiously.

“They are no more preoccupied than we were!” Mrs. March retorted with a waspish glare. “We also had to make our way, you know. Being with child is an excuse for fainting and weeping, but not for sheer inconsideration. I have had seven children myself—I know what I am talking about. Not that I am not pleased. Goodness knows, it is more than time! We were beginning to despair. Such a tragedy for a woman to be barren.” She glanced at Emily’s slender waist with implied criticism. “She has certainly caused great disappointment to poor Eustace; he so much wanted William to have an heir. The family, you know, the family is everything, when all is said and done.” She sniffed.

Emily was silent; there was nothing to say, and that curious pity came back, violently unwelcome. She did not want to remember that Sybilla also had been an outsider in this family, a failure in the one achievement that mattered to them.

Mrs. March settled a little deeper into her chair. “Better late than never, I say,” she repeated. “Now she will stay at home and do her duty, fulfill herself, instead of all this ridiculous chasing of fashion. So shallow and unworthy. Now she will make William happy and create the kind of home for him he should have.”

Emily was not listening. Of course, if Sybilla was pregnant it might account for at least some of her behavior. Emily could quite clearly remember her own mixture of excitement and fear when she was expecting Edward. It was a total change in her life, something that was happening to her and was irreversible. She was no longer alone; in a unique way she had become two people. But for all George’s pleasure it had set a distance between them. And sharp in the middle of all of that was her fear of becoming ungainly, vulnerable, and no longer attractive to him.

If Sybilla, in her middle thirties, were facing this confusion of emotions—and perhaps also a fear of childbirth; the pain, the helplessness, the utter indignity, and even the vague possibility of death—it might well account for her selfishness now, her compulsion to draw all the masculine attention while she still felt she could, before matronliness made her awkward and eventually confined her.

But it did not excuse George! Fury choked Emily like a hot lump in her chest. All sorts of actions careered through her mind. She could go upstairs and wait until he came, and then accuse him outright of behaving like a fool, of embarrassing and insulting her and offending not only William but Uncle Eustace, because it was his house, and even all the rest of them, because they were fellow guests. She could tell him to restrict his attentions to Sybilla to those courtesies which were usual, or Emily would leave for home immediately and have nothing more to do with him until he made full apologies—and amends!

Then the rage died. A feud would bring her no happiness. George would either be cowed and obey, which she would despise—and so would he—and her victory would be bitter and of no satisfaction; or else he would be driven even further in his pursuit of Sybilla, simply to show Emily that she could not dictate to him. And the latter was far the more likely. Damn men! She gritted her teeth and swallowed hard. Damn men for their stupidity, their pigheaded perverseness—and above all for their vanity!

She could feel the lump growing larger in her throat, impossible to swallow. There was so much in George she loved: he was gentle, tolerant, generous—and he could be so much fun! Why did he have to be such a fool?

She shut her eyes, opening them again only with effort. Aunt Vespasia was staring at her. “Well, Emily,” she said briskly. “I am still waiting to hear an account of your visit to Winchester. You have told me nothing.”

There was no escape; she was drawn into conversation. She knew Aunt Vespasia had done it intentionally, and she did not want to let her down by being defeatist. Aunt Vespasia would never have given up and gone away into a corner to cry.

“Certainly,” she said with artificial eagerness. And she plunged into a story, largely invented as she went along. She was still involved in its ramifications when the gentlemen rejoined them rather earlier than usual.

All evening she managed to keep up the charade, and when it was finally time to retire she had the small victory of having lived up to the task she had set herself. She saw the flash of approval in Aunt Vespasia’s silver-gray eyes, and something in Tassie’s face that could have been admiration. But only once had George looked at her, and his smile was so artificial it hurt more than a scowl, because it was as if he did not see her at all.

The sense of closeness had come from a direction she had learned to expect, but when she thought about it, not really to welcome. It was Jack Radley who joined her laughter, whose quick humor followed hers, and who at the end of the evening walked up the broad stairs with his hand at her elbow.

She stopped on the landing, almost oblivious of him, waiting for George’s step but hearing instead the rustle of silk against the bannisters below her. She knew it would be Sybilla, and yet compulsion, a thread of hope, kept her looking till they came into sight, just in case it was not. George was smiling. The gas bracket on the wall shone on his dark hair and the white skin of Sybilla’s shoulders.

George moved away from her as he saw Emily, the spontaneity dying out of his face and faint embarrassment taking its place. He looked back at Sybilla.

“Good night, and thank you for a most delightful evening,” he said awkwardly, caught between the ease of intimacy the moment before and the faintly ridiculous formality he now finished with.

Sybilla’s face was glowing; she was completely enclosed within whatever they had been saying—or doing. For her Emily did not exist, and Jack Radley was merely a shadow, part of the decor of the weekend. Words were superfluous; her smile said everything.

Emily felt sick. All her efforts had been so much waste of time. She had been an actress in an empty theater, performing only for herself—as far as George was concerned she had not been there at all. Her behavior was immaterial to him.

“Good night, Mr. Radley.” She stumbled over the words, and reaching out for the handle of her bedroom door, she opened it, went in, and closed it firmly behind her. At least she could shut them out until tomorrow. She could have nine hours of solitude. If she wanted to weep no one else would know, and when she had let go of some of the confusion and pain bursting inside her, there was the refuge of sleep before the necessity of decision.

The maid knocked.

Emily sniffed hard and swallowed. “I don’t need you, Millicent.” Her voice was strained. “You may go to bed.”

There was a moment’s hesitation; then, “Very well, m’lady. Good night.”

“Good night.” She undressed slowly, leaving her gown over the back of the chair, then took the pins out of her hair. It was a relief not to feel the weight of it on her head.

Why? Was it something about Sybilla? Her beauty, her wit, her charm? Or was it some failure in herself? Had she changed, lost some quality that George had loved? She searched, trying to recall what she had said and done recently. How was it different from the way it had always been? In what way was she less than George wanted, or needed? She had never been cold or ill-natured, she was not extravagant, she had never been rude to his friends—and heaven knows she had been tempted! Some of them were so facile, so incredibly silly, and yet they spoke to her as if she were a child.

It was a futile exercise, and in the end she crept into bed and decided to be angry instead. It was better than weeping. Angry people fight, and sometimes fighters win!

She woke with a headache and a rush of the memory of failure. All the energy drained out of her, and she stared up at the sunlight on the plaster ceiling, finding it colorless and hard. If only it were still night and she could have more time alone. The thought of going down into the breakfast room to face all those bright smiles—the curious, the confident, the pitying—and having to pretend there was nothing wrong ... What everyone else could see of George and Sybilla was of no importance; she knew something the others did not, something that explained it all.

She curled up smaller, hunching her knees, and hid her head under the sheet a few moments more. But the longer she stayed, the more thoughts crowded her head. Imagination raced away, giving reality to every threat, every possible misery, till she was drowned with wretchedness. Her head throbbed, her eyes stung, and it was past time she got up. Millicent had already knocked at the door twice; morning tea would be cold. The third time she had to let her in.

Emily took extra trouble with her appearance, the less she cared the more it mattered. She hated color out of a pot, but it was better than no color at all.

She was not the last down. Sybilla was absent, and Mrs. March had elected to have breakfast in bed, as had Great-aunt Vespasia.

“You look well, my dear Emily,” Eustace said briskly. Of course, he was perfectly aware of the situation between George and Sybilla, but deplore it as she must, a well-bred woman bore such things discreetly and affected not to have noticed. He did not approve of Emily, but he would give her the benefit of the doubt unless she made such a charitable view impossible.

“I am, thank you.” Emily forced herself to be bright, and her irritation made it easier. “I hope you slept well too?”

“Excellently.” Eustace helped himself with a lavish hand from several of the chafing dishes on the massive carved oak sideboard, set his dish in his place, then went over and threw open the windows, letting in a blast of chill morning air. He breathed in deeply, and then out again. “Excellent,” he said, disregarding everyone else’s shivering as he took his seat at the table. “I always think good health is so important in a woman, don’t you?”

Emily could think of no reason why it should be particularly, but it seemed to be largely a rhetorical question, and Eustace answered himself. “No man, especially of a good family, wants a sickly wife.”

“The poor want it even less,” Tassie said bluntly. “It costs a lot to be ill.”

But Eustace’s pontification was not to be interrupted by something so irrelevant as the poor. He waved his hand gently. “Of course it does, my dear, but then if the poor don’t have children it hardly matters, does it? It is not as if it were a case of succession to a title, of the line, so to speak. Ordinary people don’t need sons in the same way.” He shot a sour look at William. “And preferably more than one—if you wish to see the name continue.”

George cleared his throat and raised his brows, and his eyes flickered first to Sybilla, then William, and lowered to his plate again. William’s face tightened sharply.

“Being sickly doesn’t stop them having children,” Tassie argued, spots of color in her cheeks. “I don’t think health is a virtue. It is a good fortune, frequently found among those who are better off.”

Eustace took a deep breath and let it out, in a noisy expression of impatience. “My dear, you are far too young to know what you are talking about. It is a subject you cannot possibly understand, nor should you. It is indelicate for a girl in your situation, or indeed any well-bred woman. Your mother would never have dreamed of it. But I’m sure Mr. Radley understands.” He smiled across at Jack and received a stare of total incomprehension.

Tassie bent her head a little lower over her toast and preserves. The pinkness deepened in her face, a reflection of a mixture of frustration at being patronized and embarrassment because her father’s reference to her was obviously infinitely more indelicate than anything she had meant.

But Eustace was relentless; he pursued the subject obliquely throughout breakfast. To food and health were added delicacy of upbringing, discretion, obedience, an even temper, and the appropriate skills in conversation and household management. The only attribute not touched upon was wealth, and that of course would have been vulgar. And it was a matter of some sensitivity to him; his mother was of a fine family who had squandered its means, obliging her either to reduce her style of life or marry into a family which had made its fortunes in the Industrial Revolution in the mines and mills of the North. The “Trade.” She had chosen the latter, with some distaste. The former was unthinkable.

He nodded his head in satisfaction as he spoke. “When I think of my own happiness with my beloved wife, may heaven rest her, I realize how much all these things contributed to it. Such a wonderful woman! I treasure her memory—you have no notion. It was the saddest day of my life when she departed this vale of tears for a better place.”

Emily glanced across at William, whose head was bent to hide his face, and accidentally caught Jack Radley’s eyes, filled with amusement. He rolled them very slightly and smiled at her. It was a bright, disturbing look, and she knew without doubt that although the monumental effort she had made over the last three days might have failed with George, it had succeeded brilliantly with him. It was a bitter satisfaction, and worth nothing—unless unintentionally she should finally provoke George to jealousy.

She smiled back at him, not warmly, but with at least a shred of conspiracy.

George was drawn in, curiously enough, by Eustace. Eustace spoke to him with friendliness, seeking his opinion, expressing an admiration for him, which Emily found singularly inopportune. At the moment George was the last person in the house anyone should have consulted about married bliss. But Eustace was pursuing his own interests with Jack Radley and Tassie, and oblivious of anyone else’s feelings, least of all their possible embarrassment.

Emily spent the morning writing letters to her mother, a cousin to whom she owed a reply, and to Charlotte. She told Charlotte everything about George; her pain, the sense of loss which surprised her, and the loneliness that opened up in a gray, flat vastness ahead. Then she tore it up and disposed of it in the water closet.

Luncheon was worse. They were back in the heavy, rust red dining room and everyone was present except Great-aunt Vespasia, who had chosen to visit an acquaintance in Mayfair.

“Well!” Eustace rubbed his hands and looked round at all their faces in turn. “And what do we plan for the afternoon? Tassie? Mr. Radley?”

“Tassie has errands to do for me!” Mrs. March snapped. “We do have our duty, Eustace. We cannot be forever playing and amusing ourselves. My family has a position—it has always had a position.” Whether this remark was purely a piece of personal vanity or a reminder to Jack Radley that they were quite unarguably his social equals was not clear.

“And Tassie always seems to be the one keeping it up,” George said with a waspishness surprising in him.

Mrs. March’s eyes froze. “And why not, may I ask? She has nothing else to do. It is her function, her calling in life, George. A woman must have something to do. Would you deny her that?”

“Of course not!” George was getting cross, and Emily felt a lift of pride for him in spite of herself. “But I can think of a lot more amusing things for her to do than upholding the position of the Marches,” he finished.

“I daresay!” The old lady’s voice would have chipped stones—tombstones by the look on her face. “But hardly what one would wish a young lady even to hear about, much less to do. I will thank you not to injure her mind by discussing it. You’ll only upset her and cause her to have ideas. Ideas are bad for young women.”

“Quite,” Eustace added soberly. “They cause heat in the blood, and nightmares.” He took an enormous slice of chicken breast and put it on his plate. “And headaches.”

George was caught between his innate good manners and his sense of outrage; the conflict showed in his face. He glanced at Tassie.

She put her hand out and touched his arm gently. “I really don’t mind going to see the vicar, George. He’s awfully smug, and his teeth are wet and stick out, but he’s really quite harmless—”

“Anastasia!” Eustace sat bolt upright. “That is no way to speak of Mr. Beamish. He is a very worthy man, and deserving of a great deal more respect from a girl of your age.”

Tassie smiled broadly. “Yes, Papa, I am always very nice to Mr. Beamish.” Then sudden honesty checked her. “Well, nearly always.”

“You will go to call upon him this afternoon,” Mrs. March said coldly, sucking at her teeth, “and see if you can be of assistance. There must be several of the less fortunate who need visiting.”

“Yes, Grandmama,” Tassie said meekly. George sighed and, for the time being, gave up.

Emily spent the afternoon with Tassie, doing good works. If one cannot enjoy oneself, one might as well benefit someone else. As it turned out it was really quite agreeable, since Emily liked Tassie more and more each time she saw her, and their visit with the vicar’s wife was actually very brief. Considerably more time was taken up in the company of the curate, a large, soft-spoken young man called Mungo Hare, who had chosen to leave his native western Inverness-shire to seek his living in London. He was full of zeal and very forthright opinions, which were demonstrated by his acts rather than his words. They did indeed offer some real comfort to the bereaved and to the lonely, and Emily returned to Cardington Crescent with a sense of accomplishment. Added to this was the knowledge that Sybilla had spent the time paying afternoon calls with her grandmother-in-law, and must have been bored to distraction.

But Emily did not see George on her return, nor when she changed for dinner. There was no sound from the dressing room except the valet coming in and then leaving, and the feeling of desolation returned.

At the dinner table it was worse. Sybilla looked marvelous in a shade of magenta no one else would have dared to wear. Her skin was flawless, with just a touch of pink on the cheekbones, and she was still as slender as a willow in spite of her condition. Her eyes were hazel; at times they seemed brown, at others, golden, like brandy in the light. Her hair was silken, black and thick as a rope.

Emily felt washed out beside her, a moth next to a butterfly. Her hair was honey fair, softer, delicate rather than rich, her eyes quite ordinary blue; her gown was very fashionable in cut, but by comparison the color was pallid. It took all the courage she possessed to force the smile to her lips, to eat something which tasted like porridge although it appeared to be sole, roasted mutton, and fruit sorbet.

Everyone else was gay, except old Mrs. March, who had never been anything so trivial. Sybilla was radiant; George could hardly take his eyes off her. Tassie looked unusually happy, and Eustace held forth with unctuous satisfaction on something or other. Emily did not listen.

Gradually the decision hardened in her mind. Passivity was not succeeding: It was time for action, and there was only one course of action that she could think of.

There was little she could begin until the gentlemen rejoined them after the meal was over. The conservatory stretched the full length of the south side of the house, and from the withdrawing room there were glass doors under pale green curtains, which opened onto palms, vines, and a walk quite out of sight between exotic flowers.

Emily’s patience was totally exhausted. She moved to sit beside Jack Radley and took the first opportunity to engage him in conversation, which was not in the least difficult. He was only too delighted. In other circumstances she would have enjoyed it, for against her will she liked him. He was too good-looking, and he knew it, but he had wit and a sense of the absurd. She had seen it gleaming in those remarkable eyes a dozen times over the last few days. And, she thought, there was no hypocrisy in him, which in itself was enough to endear him to her after three weeks at Cardington Crescent.

“Mrs. March seemed very nervous of you,” he said curiously. “When you mentioned the word ‘detecting,’ I thought she was going to take a fit and slide under the table.” There was a shadow of laughter in his comment, and she realized just how much he disliked the old lady; a whole region of unhappiness opened a fraction to her guess. Perhaps family and circumstances were pressing him into a marriage for money. Perhaps he wanted such a union no more than the young women who were so mercilessly maneuvered by their mothers into marrying for position, so as not to be left that most pathetic of all social creatures, the unmarried woman past her prime, with neither means to support herself nor vocation to occupy her years.

“It is not my ability which alarms her,” she said with the first smile she had genuinely felt. “It is the way I came by it.”

“Came by it?” His eyebrows rose. “Was it something frightful?”

“Worse.” Her smile increased.

“Shameful?” he pursued.

“Terribly!”

“What?” He was on the edge of outright laughter now.

She bent closer to him and held up her hand. He leaned over to listen.

“My sister married appallingly beneath her,” she whispered, her lips close to his ear, “to a detective in the police!”

He shot upright and turned to face her in amazement and delight. “A detective! A real one, a peeler? Scotland Yard, and all that?”

“Yes. All that—and more.”

“I don’t believe it!” He was enjoying the game enormously, and there was a touch of reality in it that made it all the better.

“She did!” Emily argued. “Didn’t you see Mrs. March’s face? She’s terrified I’ll mention it. It’s a disgrace to the family.”

“I’ll bet it is!” He chortled with delight. “Poor old Eustace—he’ll never recover. Does Lady Cumming-Gould know?”

“Aunt Vespasia? Oh, yes. In fact if you doubt me, ask her. She knows Thomas quite well, and what’s more, she likes him, in spite of the fact that he wears clothes that don’t fit him and perfectly dreadful mufflers of most violent and unseemly colors, and his pockets are always bulging with notes and wax and matches and bits of string and heaven knows what else. And he’s never met a decent barber in his life—”

“And you like him too,” he interrupted happily. “You like him very much.”

“Oh, yes, I do. But he’s still a policeman, and he gets involved in some very gruesome murders.” The memory of them sobered her for a moment; he saw it in her face, and immediately took her mood.

“You know about them?” Now he was truly intrigued. She had his total attention, and she found it exhilarating.

“Certainly I do! Charlotte and I are very close. I’ve even helped sometimes.”

His bright eyes clouded with skepticism.

“I have!” she protested. It was something she was obscurely proud of: it had, really, something to do with life outside the suffocation of drawing rooms. “I practically solved some of them—at least, Charlotte and I did together.”

He was not sure whether to believe her or not, but there was no criticism in his face; his wide gaze was quite genuine. Were she a few years younger she could have lost herself in that look. Even now she was going to make the best of it. She stood up with a little twitch of her skirt.

“If you don’t believe me ...”

He was at her side immediately. “You? Investigating murders?” His voice was just short of incredulous, inviting her to convince him.

She accepted, walking half a step ahead of him towards the conservatory doors and the hanging vines and sweet smell of earth. Inside it was hot and motionless among the lilies, dim as a tropical night.

“We had one where the corpse turned up on the driving seat of a hansom cab,” she said deliberately. It was quite true. “After a performance of The Mikado.”

“Now you are joking,” he protested.

“No, I’m not!” She turned her widest, most innocent look on him. “The widow identified it. It was Lord Augustus Fitzroy Hammond. He was buried in the family plot with all due ceremony.” She tried to keep her face straight and stare back into his eyes, with those incredible eyelashes. “He turned up again in the family pew in church.”

“Emily, you’re preposterous!” He was standing very close to her, and for the moment, George was not paramount in her mind. She knew she was beginning to smile, in spite of the fact that it was perfectly true. “We buried him again,” she said with a hint of a giggle. “It was all very difficult, and rather disgusting.”

“That’s absurd. I don’t believe you!”

“Oh it was—I swear! Very awkward indeed. You can’t expect Society to turn up to the same person’s funeral twice in as many weeks. It isn’t decent.”

“It isn’t true.”

“It is! I swear it! We had four corpses before we’d finished—at least I think it was four.”

“And all of Lord Augustus whatever?” He was trying to control his laughter.

“Of course not—don’t be ridiculous!” she protested. She was so close to him she could smell the warmth of his skin and the faint pungency of soap.

“Emily!” He bent and kissed her slowly, intimately, as if they had all the time in the world. Emily let herself go, stretching her arms up round his neck and answering him.

“I shouldn’t do this,” she said frankly after a few moments. But it was a factual remark, not a reproach.

“Probably not,” he agreed, touching her hair gently, then her cheek. “Tell me the truth, Emily.”

“What?” she whispered.

“Did you really find four corpses?” He kissed her again.

“Four or five,” she murmured. “And we caught the murderer as well. Ask Aunt Vespasia—if you’ve the nerve. She was there.”

“I just might.”

She disengaged herself with a shadow of reluctance—it had been nicer than it should have been—and began her way back past the flowers and the vines to the withdrawing room.

Mrs. March was holding forth on the chivalry of the pre-Raphaelite painters, their meticulousness of detail and delicacy of color, and William was listening, his face pinched and pained. It was not that he disapproved, but that she totally misunderstood what he believed to be the concept. She missed the passion and caught only the sentimentality.

Tassie and Sybilla were so positioned that they were obliged either to listen or to be openly rude, and long habit precluded the latter. Eustace, on the other hand, was master of the house and owed no such courtesy. He sat with his back to the group and discoursed upon the moral obligations of position, and George had on his face his look of polite interest which masked complete absence of attention; he was gazing towards the conservatory doors. He must have seen Emily and Jack Radley.

Emily felt a sudden, rather alarming sense of excitement; it was a crisis provoked at last!

She walked a fraction ahead of Jack but was still conscious of him close behind her, of his warmth and the gentleness of his touch. She sat down next to Great-aunt Vespasia and pretended to listen to Eustace.

The rest of the evening passed in a similar vein, and Emily hardly noticed the time until twenty-five minutes to midnight. She was returning to the withdrawing room from the bathroom upstairs, passing the morning room door, when she heard voices in soft, fierce conversation.

“... you’re a coward!” It was Sybilla, her voice husky with anger and contempt. “Don’t tell me—”

“You may believe what you like!” The answer cut her off.

Emily stopped, almost falling over as hope and fear choked each other and left her shaking. It was George, and he was furious. She knew that tone precisely; he had had the same welling up of temper when his jockey was thrashed at the race track. It had been half his own fault then, and he knew it. Now he was lashing out at Sybilla, and her voice came back thick with fury.

The door of the boudoir swung open and Eustace stood with his hand on it. Any moment he would turn and see Emily listening. She moved on swiftly, head high, straining to catch the last words from the morning room. But the voices were too strident, too clashing to distinguish the words.

“Ah, Emily.” Eustace swiveled round. “Time to retire, I think. You must be tired.” It was a statement, not a question. Eustace considered it part of his prerogative to decide when everyone wished to go to bed, as he had always done for his family when they all lived here. He had decided almost everything and believed it his privilege and his duty. Before she died, Olivia March had obeyed him sweetly—and then gone her own way with such discretion he was totally unaware of it. Many of his best ideas had been hers, but they had been given him in such a way he thought them his own, and he therefore defended them to the death and put every last one into practice.

Emily had no will to argue tonight. She returned to the withdrawing room, wished everyone good sleep, and went gratefully to her room. She had undressed, dismissing her maid with instructions for the morning, and was about to get into bed when there was a knock on the dressing-room door.

She froze. It could only be George. Half of her was terrified and wanted to keep silent, pretend she was already asleep. She stared at the knob as if it would turn on its own and let him in.

The knock came again, harder. It might be her only opportunity, and if she turned him away she would lose it forever.

“Come in.”

Slowly, the door opened. George stood in the archway, looking tired and uncomfortable. His face was flushed—Emily knew why immediately. Sybilla had made a scene, and George hated scenes. Without thinking, she knew what to do. Above all, it would be disastrous to confront him. The last thing he wanted now was another emotional woman.

“Hello,” she said with a very small smile, pretending this was not an important occasion, a meeting that might turn their lives and all that mattered to her.

He came in tentatively, followed by old Mrs. March’s spaniel, which to her fury had taken such a liking to him that it had abandoned its mistress. He was unsure what to say, fearful lest she were only biding her time before launching at him with an accusation, a justified charge he could not defend himself against.

She turned away to make it easier, as though it were all perfectly ordinary. She struggled for something to say that would not touch on all that was painful between them.

“I really quite enjoyed my afternoon with Tassie,” she began casually. “The vicar is terribly tedious, and so is his wife. I can see why Eustace likes them. They have a lot in common, similar views on the simplicity of virtue”—she pulled a face—“and the virtue of simplicity. Especially in women and children, which they believe to be roughly the same. But the curate was charming.”

George sat down on the stool before the dressing table, and she watched him with a tiny lift of pleasure. It meant he intended to stay, at least for a few minutes.

“I’m glad,” he said with an awkward smile, fishing for something to continue with. It was ridiculous; a month ago they spoke as easily as old friends—they would have laughed at the vicar together. Now he looked at her, his eyes wide and searching, but only for a moment. Then he looked away again, not daring to press too hard, afraid of a rebuff. “I’ve always liked Tassie. She’s so much more like the Cumming-Gould side of the family than the Marches. I suppose William is, too, for that matter.”

“That can only be good,” Emily said sincerely.

“You’d have liked Aunt Olivia,” he went on. “She was only thirty-eight when she died. Uncle Eustace was devastated.”

“After eleven children in fifteen years, I should imagine she was, too,” Emily said tartly. “But I don’t suppose Eustace thought of that.”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

She turned to him and smiled, suddenly glad he had never even implicitly expected such a thing of her. For a moment the old warmth was back, tentative, uncertain, but there; then, before she could take too much for granted and be disappointed, she looked away again.

“I’ve always thought visiting the poor was probably more offensive to them than leaving them decently alone,” she went on. “But I think Tassie really did some good. She seems so very honest.”

“She is.” He bit his lip. “Although she’s not yet in Charlotte’s class, thank heaven. But perhaps that’s only a matter of time; she doesn’t have as many opinions yet.” He stood up, wary lest he overstay and risk the precious fragment regained between them. He hesitated, and for a moment the indecision flickered on his face. Dare he bend and kiss her, or was it too soon? Yes—yes, it was still too fragile, Sybilla too recent. He reached out and touched her shoulder and then withdrew his hand. “Good night, Emily.”

She looked at him solemnly. If he came back it must be on her terms, or it would only happen again, and she would not willingly suffer that. “Good night, George,” she replied gently. “Sleep well.”

He went out slowly, the dog pattering after him, and the door clicked shut. She curled up on the bed and hugged her knees, feeling tears of relief prickle in her eyes and run smoothly and painlessly down her cheeks. It was not over, but the terrible helplessness was gone. She knew what to do. She sniffed fiercely, reaching for a handkerchief, and blew her nose hard. It was loud and unladylike—distinctly a sound of triumph.