Back home, she had told Mary all: from their botched attempt at a rescue to Mr Northway’s unexpected intervention, to her ensuing conversation with the man and the thoughts it had awoken in her.
‘And this morning, before dawn, I was awake with the sound of gunfire in my ears and the sheets soaked as though I had a fever,’ she finished. ‘I feel as though I should have put it behind me. Am I letting the family down?’
‘You were only thirteen when our father . . . died,’ Mary said unhappily. With their mother dead bringing Rodric into the world, she had been left to bring up her three siblings after the suicide. ‘It was a terrible time to become a parent, although I suppose the experience has been useful.’ She looked down at little Francis, asleep in her arms after some early-morning hysterics. ‘All you knew, at the time, was the loss.’
‘And that Mr Northway was responsible,’ Emily put in almost desperately. ‘That he drove Father to it.’
Mary gave her a level look.
‘Mary why else have I been hounding the man all these years? Why else have I been his most determined enemy in Chalcaster? We have all of us placed the blame for it at his door, myself more than anybody, but . . .’ She took a deep breath. ‘But he was not the only one to blame.’
For a long time Mary regarded her silently, but then she managed a short nod. ‘I know. I hated myself for it, but I blamed him too. But do not forget that Northway is guilty, as well.’
‘Without a doubt, guilty as any man ever was,’ Emily agreed. ‘All the heroes have gone to war, after all. What can we be left with save villains? He should be the toast of Chalcaster, of course.’ But behind the bitterness there was a mixture of feelings. When she had ridden to town soon after the rescue she had expected to see bunting and cheering, and toasts drunk to the health of Mr Northway, but the Mayor-Governor was closeted in his office still, and would not see mere well-wishers. Any advantage he could have made of the situation was leaching away whilst he dealt with each new problem the war effort handed him. Most did not even guess that he had anything to do with the Ghyer’s defeat.
Can it be possible that the war will actually make an honest man of him? The idea was almost enough to make her laugh.
After that, perhaps she should have made a visit to Chalcaster, if only to assess her old enemy and see where his new weak points were, and whether his razor-edged wit had dulled after their adventure. But the ball was coming on apace by then, and Mrs Shevarler had the dresses brought to them for their final fitting, and suddenly there was more to do than Emily had time to cope with.
And anyway, she had been expecting him to darken her door in his mourner’s black. Surely he would come to exploit his newfound leverage, to barter the rescue of her sister into some usable currency. She was ready for the clash and had marshalled her arguments against him, ready to resist any blandishment he should employ. And yet he stayed away. Perhaps his work as mayor kept him busy. Or perhaps he himself was not sure how to approach this new stage of their rivalry.
And all too soon Emily and Alice were embarking for Deerlings, leaving Chalcaster and its problems behind them.
*
The approach to Deerlings had been planned two generations back to waste no opportunity of showing off the house or the splendour of its grounds. Now their buggy wound its way through ever-ascending slopes of lawns and fountains and exquisite topiary: even with winter just a day away, and the chills of the year’s end creeping in with the gathering dark, there were flowers still in bloom, each bed carefully seeded so that as one harvest of colour faded, another was awakening.
Emily had visited here once before when she was no more than eight, for her father to receive some honour from Lord Deerling. Her impressions were of massive high-ceilinged rooms finished in gilt, of mirrors and polished floors that showed her reflection equally well, of a host of soft-footed servants who were always there to keep an eye on the curious child. Alice had come more recently as the guest of one of her well-born friends at