“You don’t know that,” Emily argued. “I was here in March, and you hadn’t done this then.”
“Well it will do,” Caroline said with certainty. “Anyway, March can feel like the middle of winter. We frequently get snow in March. And I shall spend my money how I please.”
Emily sat down on the bed. Caroline did look extraordinarily well. Her skin was glowing and her eyes were brilliant with vitality and enthusiasm. It made Emily sick to think how it would all change when Joshua grew tired and went his way. Suddenly she hated him.
“What is it?” Caroline asked, frowning a little. “Maddock said you had something you wished to speak to me about urgently, and you do look a little anxious, my dear. Is it to do with Jack and the by-election?”
“Only in the remotest way—actually, no, not at all.”
“You sound confused,” Caroline pointed out. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what it is, and we can decide what it has to do with afterwards.”
Emily stared sideways at the window with its wonderful festoons of flowers.
“I was at a dinner party yesterday evening,” she began, then stopped. Now that she came to tell it, it sounded so trivial. She searched for the right words.
“Yes?” Caroline prompted, sitting a little more upright against her pillows. “I assume you met someone of importance?”
“Oh several people. But this particular person was of no importance whatsoever.”
Caroline frowned, but she kept her patience.
“It was what she said,” Emily continued. “Actually it was Lady Malmsbury …”
“Selina Court’s mother?” Caroline looked surprised. “By the way, have you seen Sir James lately? He used to be really quite agreeable, now he has become very portly and is losing his hair already. I always thought Selina could have done rather better, but Maria Malmsbury wouldn’t wait.”
“Yes, I never thought much of him,” Emily agreed. “But Lady Malmsbury said to me that she saw you outside the Gaiety Theatre, dressed in a silk turban and a gown with no waist to speak of, with Joshua Fielding and some other actors. Or to be more correct, she said it couldn’t possibly be you. But of course she meant that it was.”
“Oh yes, we had a most excellent time,” Caroline said enthusiastically, her eyes bright with the memory. “It was such fun. I never realized how catchy some of those songs can be. And I haven’t laughed like that for years. It is very good for one to laugh, you know? It makes the face look so agreeable.”
“But in a silk turban,” Emily said in anguish.
“Why not? Silk is a delicious fabric—and turbans are most flattering.”
“A turban, Mama! And a dress with no waist! If you had to go at all, couldn’t you at least have worn something ordinary? Even the aesthetes gave those up years ago.”
“My dear Emily, I have no intention of allowing Maria Malmsbury to dictate what I should wear—or where I should find my entertainment, or in whose company. And I don’t give a fig about the aesthetes. And dearly as I love both you and Charlotte, I shall not allow you to dictate to me either.” She put her hand over Emily’s. “If it embarrasses you, I’m sorry; but there have been in the past a few times when you have sorely embarrassed me. Your involvement with Thomas’s detecting, to begin with.”
“You have involved yourself,” Emily said indignantly. “Less than six months ago. How can you be so …”
“I know,” Caroline said quickly. “And if circumstances should offer me the opportunity, I shall do so again. Experience has taught me I was quite mistaken to be embarrassed. Perhaps in time it will do the same for you.”
Emily let out a wail of frustration.
“Is that the only thing that troubles you?” Caroline inquired pleasantly.
“For Heaven’s sake, Mama, isn’t it enough? My mother is keeping company with an actor half her age, and the fact that it will ruin her in society doesn’t seem to bother her at all. She is seen in the Strand dressed like I don’t know what!”
“Well, my dear, if it frightens your respectable voters, it may endear me to those less respectable,” Caroline said cheerfully. “Let us hope they outnumber the prudes. But if you wish me to stay at home and dress in purple so Jack can be elected, I am afraid I am not going to oblige you, dearly as I hope he wins.”
“I am not thinking of Jack. I am concerned for you,” Emily protested, truthfully, because she did not think Jack would win anyway. “What will happen when all this is over? Have you thought of that?”
The joy went out of Caroline’s face, leaving her so intensely vulnerable Emily wanted to clasp her in her arms and hold her, as she would have a child.
“I shall be older, alone, and have memories of a glorious time when I was happy, and loved, even if it could not be mine forever,” Caroline replied very quietly, looking down at the rose-colored quilt. “I shall have had laughter, imagination and friendship such as few women ever have, and I shall keep my memories without bitterness.” She raised her eyes to Emily’s. “That is what will happen. I shall not go into a decline, or expect you or Charlotte to sit with me while I weep over it. Does that make you feel any better?”
Ridiculously, Emily found there were tears in her eyes.
“No—I shall—I shall hurt for you so terribly!” She sniffed and fished for a handkerchief unsuccessfully.
Caroline passed her one from under her pillow.
“That is the price of loving, my dear,” she said softly. “Usually it is parents who agonize for their children, but sometimes it is the other way too. The only way to avoid that is not to love anyone enough for their pain to hurt you. But that is like having part of you that is dead.”
Emily let out her breath in a long sigh. There was nothing to say to that, no argument.
“Tell me about the campaign,” Caroline suggested, retrieving her handkerchief. “And about the new house of
