The Land of Summer (21 page)

So she tore the half-started letters up, and put them on the fire. And as she watched them burning, burning as fiercely as her spirit was grieving, she became aware that she might as well be burning her marriage, her time at Park House, because, aside from the servants who were all now her friends and, she was well aware, pitied
her
situation, she could see no one and nothing that had any point for her.

‘Here I go again,’ she scolded herself. ‘Here I go feeling sorry for myself. I must stop feeling sorry for myself, and think.’

This was really where her innate misery lay. Her mind had become incapable of seeing things calmly, of finding a way out of the despair in which she had allowed it to be enveloped. She would, if she were her own best friend, be able to accuse herself of indulging her emotions to a ridiculous degree. She must pull herself together and make the most of whatever it was that life was presenting to her. To do less than that would be shaming.

First things first. She would make a list. This had always helped her with her school work, and now more than ever it could help her again.

She wrote
Emmaline Aubrey – her sorrows
, but that too looked so self-pitying that she scratched it out and wrote
my sorrows
out fifty times, as a punishment, and then threw that page too in the fire.

Very well, Miss Emmaline Nesbitt, now is the time to sing, to play, but not to feel sorry for yourself
.

Oh, my Lord!
She had called herself by her maiden name, not by her married name. Perhaps that was the trouble? In her own
mind
she was unmarried, not just in her body.

What I must do is try to win Julius back by my own faith and diligence. I must win back not only Julius’s respect, but finally also his love, for I know he has felt,
might
still feel, something for me. Why otherwise do I find him looking towards me suddenly as if he would love to love me? Why has he on occasion stroked my hair with such a tender touch?

She determined on one final effort, while recognising in herself an understandable reluctance to face any of the people who had witnessed her humiliation at the party. Carriages came and went leaving elegant engraved calling cards, but Emmaline gave it out through the servants that she was unwell, unable at the moment to attend At Homes, or return calls. Meanwhile, with Julius still away on business, she lay on a chaise longue in her dressing room, staring into the fire, and struggling with her despair.

Happily the weather continued to be fine and warm, even as summer began to edge towards autumn, with the colours fading in the borders and on the roses as the garden started to go over. In the borders the herbaceous plants grew too tall to stay upright, their heads turning to seed pods and their leaves browning and curling at the edges, advertising in advance nature’s general move towards winter.

Sometimes, although only at Agnes’s urging, Emmaline would snatch up a shawl and leave her room to wander round the grounds, picking the best of what was left of the roses, which she would then be encouraged by the ever faithful Mrs Graham to arrange into magnificent displays to be enjoyed by herself and the servants.

At other times she would just sit in the shade
of
a large umbrella on the terrace watching blackbirds pulling worms from the lawns, and swallows building up their strength for the coming migration to warmer climes.

It was as the first leaves of autumn began to fall that Emmaline started to write poetry, and unlike her tentative forays into letter-writing, she did not tear up the pages that she started to work on in her generous sloping hand.

So easily did the first verses come that it was as if she had always done it, and so mystified was she by the process that when she had put down her pen she was startled to realise that she had no recollection of how or when she had begun. She found herself sitting on the terrace as was her wont, a fine lace shawl round her shoulders and a glass of freshly made lemonade on the occasional table Wilkinson always set out for her, with the notebook she used as an
aide-memoire
for household matters open in front of her, but instead of lists of household necessities, and suggested menus, she saw she had written a four-verse poem.

She stared at it, reading it and re-reading it, each time understanding it less, incapable of judging its merit. The verses seemed to rhyme and they appeared not to be doggerel, yet, as she immediately realised, she could not possibly be the best judge of that if she was unable to judge the poem at all. Even so, just as the verses seemed to rhyme and to be written in the correct rhythm, they also seemed to express some of the emotions
Emmaline
had been feeling, although when she realised just how much of her soul she had exposed she quickly shut the notebook and left it locked in the bureau in the bedroom for several days, even imagining that when the time came to retrieve it she would find the pages to be blank, leaving her to imagine that she must have fallen asleep in the warm September sun and dreamed the whole experience.

But when she did come to unlock her desk drawer and take out the notebook, there indeed the poem was, just as she had remembered it. So the following afternoon, once again left to her own devices, Emmaline wrote another – a longer poem that she was nowhere near finishing when Dolly clattered out on to the terrace with a tray of tea, and some delicately made watercress sandwiches.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Aubrey, but Cook sends to tell you that you’re to eat up all the sandwiches or she will want to know the reason why. She don’t like the sight of so much of her food coming back down to the kitchens again, so be a good lady, Cook says, and eat up good and proper.’ Dolly stood back. ‘Cook is worried about you, and so is Mrs Graham, and so is I, Mrs Aubrey. We all want you to be happy and smiling same as you were before the master’s birthday dinner.’

Emmaline looked up, startled. She had had no idea until that moment quite how much the servants were all worrying about her. She felt guilty, as if she had brought them down by
her
misery-making and self-pity. She reached forward for a plate, and of course a sandwich.

‘Tell Cook I will try to eat the whole plate of sandwiches, and they are perfectly delicious,’ she instructed Dolly as the maid poured the tea for her. ‘And tell her that I will make more of an effort at dinner too. But tell her too that it is just a little difficult for a woman to eat on her own.’

‘That’s just what I said, Mrs Aubrey. I said since you are always on your own, the master away so much at the moment, your appetite is bound to drop off of you, same as it always does my mother, at certain times in particular.’

Emmaline glanced up at Dolly. She had no idea what the young girl was talking about, but she was such a dear little girl she knew she must respond.

‘I shall eat like a horse from now on,’ she said, and Dolly quickly noted that her mistress was already sounding a great deal more herself.

‘I will tell Cook, right away I will. I will tell her that you will be eating for – that you will be eating more, eh?’

There was silence after Dolly had clattered off, looking happily bright and perky. Emmaline ate as much as she could, and drank some tea, before once more picking up her notebook, fully expecting, yet again, to find that the poem had disappeared and she had merely dreamed it. But it was not so. The poem was there.

Seeing her words again Emmaline felt oddly excited, as if she had been taken over by some
invisible
force that had become part of her and was now allowing her to express herself in a way she would never previously have thought possible. The more she read through her two finished works the more she longed to be able to show them to someone, just to see if they were passable.

Of course!
she suddenly realised as she sat sipping her tea in the pale glow of early evening.
I could show them to the young man in the bookshop – to Mr Ashcombe!
It was indeed a possibility, since of all the people she had now met at Bamford, there in Mr Ashcombe was someone who not only loved and appreciated poetry, but had achieved a first-class degree in English, which would more than qualify him to comment on the merits, or demerits, of her own verses. Naturally she would not be able to show him the poems as her own; they would have to be said to have been written by a
friend
, and because Emmaline herself had thought rather highly of them she had brought them into Mr Hunt’s bookshop for not only a second opinion but a far more qualified one.

It seemed to Emmaline, as she carefully locked her notebook away in her Davenport desk, that hers was a perfect plan, and what was more a feasible one too. With Julius still away on his business travels she had no worries about being spied upon. Moreover, while she was in town, she might even call and leave her card on Mrs Henry Bateson, who had done the same to her only the day before, calling and leaving another
card
with a message that expressed concern that Emmaline was unwell, and hoped she would soon be sufficiently recovered to be able to grace one of Mrs Bateson’s At Homes.

It was colder the next day, with a chill wind blowing down from the north, hinting of bitter weather to follow. As her carriage drove Emmaline into town, she remarked to Agnes on the number of leaves that were now falling, and how soon winter would be upon them.

‘But then that’ll be a good thing for you, madam,’ Agnes replied, watching the branches of the trees in the park being shaken by the rising winds. ‘Getting married in the winter, like, means at least you’ll have something to look forward to: your anniversary. Thought of that should cheer you up during them long winter evenings.’

Emmaline glanced at her maid, wondering whether the words had been said in true innocence or not, but seeing young Agnes’s open and unspoiled expression she realised that the girl was incapable of any sort of malice.

‘I do hope it’s not going to be a long, cold winter, Aggie. Not like the last one.’

‘Winter’s always long, madam,’ Agnes sighed. ‘Not always cold, but it’s always bloomin’ long, especially in England. If we was Spanishy winter’d be over in a second.’

As instructed, the carriage stopped at the top of the street where Mr Hunt’s bookshop was situated, in order that Emmaline could pay a visit to her
dressmaker
in Lower High Street. Emmaline and Agnes hurried into the house, holding their bonnets down with one hand against the swirling wind. Here, while Agnes looked longingly at the silks and satins stacked in rolls on the counter of the crowded room, Emmaline was fitted for some new winter dresses.

‘Next, I have to go to the bookshop, so you might as well wait in the carriage, Aggie,’ she said. ‘I shan’t be very long.’

‘I don’t mind coming to the shop if you don’t mind,’ Agnes replied. ‘I never been to no bookshop.’

‘Can you read, Aggie?’

‘No, ma’am. But that’s not really the point, madam.’

‘We must teach you to read, Agnes,’ Emmaline told her with a gentle smile. ‘That is something I can spend my time fruitfully doing this winter. Teaching you how to read.’

‘Would you, madam?’ Agnes looked at Emmaline as she thought of the excitement of what her mistress was proposing. ‘I wouldn’t half like that, madam.’

‘It will be hard work, Aggie,’ Emmaline warned her, turning to head for the street that besides Mr Hunt’s shop also led to Julius’s works. ‘But it will be so very worthwhile. And of course you may accompany me to the bookshop – just so as long as you don’t get under my feet.’

As they were passing a private house four doors down from the dressmaker’s, through
an
open window they heard the unmistakable sounds of raised voices, of an argument between a man and a woman, their words criss-crossing each other while the woman could be heard to be crying. Unable to resist, both Agnes and Emmaline turned to look and saw a man in a dark red frock coat standing with his back to the window and both his hands to his head of curled flaxen hair, holding it as though in pain, faced by a blonde young woman whose pretty face was running with tears as she continued her protest against him.

‘Come along now, Aggie,’ Emmaline said to her maid, taking her by the arm. ‘This is no business of ours.’

‘He’s not having much of a time of it, is he, though, madam?’ Agnes wondered, wide-eyed. ‘She’s letting him have it good and proper.’

‘It’s no business of ours, Aggie,’ Emmaline repeated. ‘So come along. You may sit in the window seat of Mr Hunt’s shop, but do not, I beg you, touch any of the volumes, however tempted you may feel.’

The bookshop was busy, giving Emmaline the impression that it was one of the more successful enterprises in the town. Mr Hunt saw Emmaline as soon as she entered the shop, and came across to welcome her at once, wondering what he might be able to help her with on this particular visit.

Emmaline dropped her eyes momentarily, remembering the initial reason for her last call before telling the charmingly unflappable and
very
discreet Mr Hunt, bookseller to the gentry, that what she really wished to do was have a quick word with his young assistant, Mr Ashcombe.

‘As long as it is no trouble, Mr Hunt,’ she added. ‘For I can see how very busy you are.’

‘We are never too busy for any of our customers, I assure you,’ Mr Hunt replied. ‘That is why we never close our shop till the last customer has finished his or her business. But I am afraid you might have to wait a moment or so for young Mr Ashcombe. He had to pop back home for something he had forgotten, but since he lives nearby I imagine you will not be delayed very long. In fact, here is the very gentleman in question, even as we speak.’

Mr Hunt indicated with a hand in the direction of the shop door, and as she turned Emmaline saw the now familiar sight of a flaxen-haired young man in a dark red frock coat hurrying through the customers to his desk at the rear of the shop.

‘Why, Mrs Aubrey!’ he cried with genuine pleasure, extending his hand. His cheeks were flushed with the effort of hurrying back to the shop. ‘I am so
very
glad to see you – delighted, in fact. Have you come to talk about poetry again? How pleasant if you have!’