Mary snatched it first and read it out over the table.
‘My dearest Alice, Emily and Mary,
I am well. I have arrived now at the Levant, and conditions here are good.
I have already fought in my first battle. It was hard fighting but a great victory, and we routed the Denlanders from the field. I hope you are proud of me for serving king and country. I certainly am.
Uncle Tubal is well.
We are moving soon, pressing our advantage into enemy territory. I do not know how soon I will be able to write again.
I think about you all every day. It helps remind me what I am fighting to protect.
All my love,
Your little brother,
Rodric.’
‘It’s so brief,’ Mary complained. ‘How can he not have more to write?’ And why doesn’t Tubal write? It has been so long now since we’ve heard from him.’
Emily spread her hands ‘Perhaps he does not think to. You know how men can get wrapped up in their own schemes.’
‘Emily he is a printer. If printers don’t think to write, who ever will?’ complained Mary. ‘Well, I suppose it is good, at any rate, to know that they are both safe.’
‘Rodric does sound like he is enjoying himself.’ Emily folded the paper, staring at the smudged print on the frontispiece: An artist’s rendition of the taking of Fort Lascaia. ‘I didn’t want him to go, as you know, but, now he’s gone, perhaps it’s for the best,’ she mused. ‘The newspapers say the war will end soon, and it would have been difficult for him later if all the other men had fought, and not he.’
‘Men,’ snorted Mary disdainfully. ‘Men and their games, who cares about them?’
‘And I’m sure you won’t care at all when Tubal comes back with his uniform and his medals,’ Emily said slyly.
Mary fell silent, and then she smiled a little for the first time in a long while. ‘Well, maybe—’ she began, before they heard a shrill wail from baby Francis upstairs. ‘Awake again, so soon? I swear he sleeps less and less every day. By three years old he will never sleep again.’ She started for the stairs, and then turned back and placed Rodric’s letter on the table in front of Emily. ‘You should have Alice come in and read it. She misses Rodric more than we do, I think. And it will put her in a better humour.’
‘She only misses having someone to tease,’ Emily remarked to Mary’s retreating back. She picked up the letter and read it over again. So much for Mr Northway’s dire hintings, she thought. And so much for my fears.
She went upstairs to rap at Alice’s door, but received no answer. When she pushed it ajar, she found the bed empty and neatly made. Apparently Alice had already arisen, and was presumably moping somewhere, avoiding her.
Emily decided that she was not going to play hide-and-seek with her own sister, and went to find Jenna instead. ‘Go find Alice for me, when you have a moment. She should see this.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Emily folded the letter and put it in the pocket of her dress, before strolling out into the kitchen, which still bore the faint, delicious smell of bacon from that morning, courtesy of what they had retained from Mr Northway’s latest donation.
‘Cook, have you seen Alice?’ she asked.
The stout woman looked up from scrubbing a pan. ‘Not since mid-morning, ma’am, when she was talking to that gentleman at the gate.’
Emily frowned at her. ‘What gentleman, Cook?’
‘Well, I say gentleman – a scruffy sort. Some wandering tinker or the like. I’ve seen him before around here, talking to the young miss.’
Emily nodded slowly, a little disquiet creeping into her. A traveller would have moved on by now, and anyone keeping watch on Mr Northway would be in Chalcaster right now. Obviously it couldn’t be the same man Alice had met in town . . .
It came to her then just how little she knew about how her younger sister spent her time, just as Alice had accused the night before.
Feeling anxious now, Emily stepped out into the stable yard, calling, ‘Grant! Are you there?’
She had to call again before the burly servant appeared from behind the house, with a shovel in his hand.
‘Sorry, ma’am. I’ve just been seeing to the garden. What’s the trouble?’
‘Grant, do you know where Alice is?’
‘That I don’t, ma’am.’
Emily clenched her fists, taking a deep breath. ‘Have you seen her talking, perhaps, with a stranger