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.
