‘And how does he feel?’ Hannah said, not daring to look at Emmeline. ‘Has he ever given you reason to believe he might feel the same way?’
‘I’m sure he does,’ Emmeline said. ‘He’s never once missed an opportunity to come out with me. I know it’s not because he likes my friends. He’s made no secret of the fact he thinks they’re a bunch of spoiled and idle kids.’ She nodded resolutely. ‘I’m sure he does and I’m going to find him.’
‘Don’t,’ said Hannah with a firmness that took Emmeline by surprise. ‘He’s not for you.’
‘How do you know?’ said Emmeline. ‘You barely know him.’
‘I know his type,’ said Hannah. ‘Blame the war. It took perfectly normal young men and returned them changed. Broken.’ I thought of Alfred, the night on the stairs at Riverton when his ghosts had come for him, then I forced him from my mind.
‘I don’t care,’ said Emmeline stubbornly. ‘I think it’s romantic. I should like to look after him. Fix him.’
‘Men like Robbie are dangerous,’ said Hannah. ‘They can’t be fixed. They are as they are.’ She exhaled, frustrated. ‘You have so many other suitors. Can’t you find it in your heart to love one of them?’
Emmeline shook her head stubbornly.
‘I know you can. Promise you’ll try?’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘You must.’
Emmeline looked away from Hannah then, and I saw something new in her expression: something harder, more immovable. ‘It’s really no concern of yours, Hannah,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m twenty. I don’t need you to help make my decisions. You were married at my age and Lord knows you didn’t consult anyone on that decision.’
‘It’s hardly the same thing-’
‘I don’t need a big sister watching over everything I do. Not any more.’ Emmeline exhaled and turned again to face Hannah. Her voice was lighter. ‘Let’s agree, shall we, that from this point on we’ll let one another live the life she chooses? What do you say?’
Hannah, it turned out, had little to say. She nodded agreement, and closed the door behind her.
On the eve of our departure for Riverton, I packed the last of Hannah’s dresses. She was sitting by the windowsill, watching over the park as the last of the day’s light faded. The streetlights were just coming on when she turned and said to me, ‘Have you ever been in love, Grace?’
Her question startled me. Its timing. ‘I… I couldn’t say, ma’am.’ I laid her fox-tail coat along the base of the steamer trunk.
‘Oh, you’d know if you had,’ she said.
I avoided her gaze. Tried to sound indifferent; hoped that it would cause her to change the subject. ‘In that case, I’d have to say no, ma’am.’
‘Probably a lucky thing.’ She turned back to the window. ‘True love, it’s like an illness.’
‘An illness, ma’am?’ I certainly felt sick enough then and there.
‘I never understood it before. In books and plays. Poems. I never understood what drove otherwise intelligent, right-thinking people to do such extravagant, irrational things.’
‘And now, ma’am?’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘Now I do. It’s an illness. You catch it when you least expect. There’s no known cure. And sometimes, in its most extreme, it’s fatal.’
I let my eyes close briefly. My balance faltered. ‘Not fatal, ma’am, surely?’
‘No. You’re probably right, Grace. I exaggerate.’ She turned to me and smiled. ‘You see? I’m a case in point. I’m behaving like the heroine in some awful penny novelette.’ She was quiet then but must have continued to think along the same lines, for after a while she tilted her head quizzically and said, ‘You know, Grace, I always thought that you and Alfred…?’
‘Oh no, ma’am,’ I said quickly. Too quickly. ‘Alfred and I were never more than friends.’ The hot sting of a thousand needles in my skin.
‘Really?’ She pondered this. ‘I wonder what made me think otherwise.’
‘I couldn’t say, ma’am.’
She watched me, fumbling with her silks, and she smiled. ‘I’ve embarrassed you.’
‘Not at all, ma’am,’ I said. ‘It’s just that…’ I clutched at conversation. ‘I was just thinking of a recent letter I received. News from Riverton. It’s a coincidence you should ask after Alfred just now.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ I couldn’t seem to stop. ‘Do you remember Miss Starling that used to work for your father?’
Hannah frowned. ‘That thin lady, with the mousy hair? Used to tiptoe about the house with a typing machine?’
‘Yes, ma’am, that’s her.’ I was outside myself then, watching and listening as somehow I gave every appearance of carelessness. ‘She and Alfred were married, ma’am. Just this last month past. They’re living in Ipswich now, running his mechanical business.’ I closed her trunk and nodded, kept my gaze low. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, ma’am, I believe Mr Boyle needs me downstairs.’
I closed the door behind me and I was alone. I clamped my hand to my mouth. Clenched my eyes shut. Felt my shoulders shaking, moist clicks in my throat.
My skeleton seemed to lose some crucial integrity and I crumpled. Seeped, shoulder first, into the wall, longing to disappear into the floors, the wall, the air.
There I remained. Immovable. I had vague visions of Teddy or Deborah finding me in the darkened hallway when time came for them to make their way to bed. Mr Boyle being called to arrange for my removal. And I felt nothing. No shame. No duty. For what did it matter? What did any of it matter any more?
Then somewhere downstairs, a crash. Plates and cutlery.
A breath caught in my throat. My eyes opened. The present rushed upon me, refilled me.
Of course it mattered. Hannah mattered. Now more than ever she needed me. The move back to Riverton, being without Robbie.
I exhaled shakily. Levelled my shoulders and swallowed. Forced my throat to relax.
Little use would I be if I gave myself over to self-indulgence, became so weighed down with self-pity I was distracted from my duties.
I pushed away from the wall, smoothed my skirt and straightened my cuffs. Wiped my eyes.
I was a lady’s maid. Not a petty housemaid. I was relied upon. Could not be given to episodes of such imprudent abandon.
I exhaled again. Deeply. Purposefully. Nodded to myself and walked large, definite steps down the hall.
And as I climbed the stairs to my room, I forced closed the horrid door in my mind through which I’d briefly glimpsed the husband, the hearth, the children I might have had.
