Distantly, echoing from hill to hill, she heard the sound of the locomotive as it pulled away from the Chalcaster platform and began its long progress to Allsmere, thirty miles away. An owl took up the call and carried it on soundless wings over the house.
There were lamps being lit in the rooms below now, and shutters being thrown back. The fire’s heat spilled out into a leaching fog that stole its warmth and light away at once. Emily was abruptly aware of the chill seeping into her room, touching her skin through the dress.
I am not ready for this. She did not want to go down and face what must happen but, if not her, then why would anyone else? She was about to turn away from the window when she saw, deep in the night fog’s haze, a scatter of lamps approaching along the Chalcaster road. She strained her ears but heard no sound of horse or man. Still, who else could it be? They were coming at last.
She closed the shutters carefully, as though prudence could put off the inevitable.
She paused with her hand on the door handle. The world with its cares and woes was waiting for her.
In the kitchen, Alice was scolding over how the maid had arranged her hair, a vexation welcome for its familiarity. There was the smell of the porridge oats over the fire, and she heard the rough, throaty voice of the miller’s wife murmuring about money. The stout, callused woman was at the door as Emily descended, coin in her hand and three loaves on the table drowning the cooking porridge with the scent of fresh bread.
‘Thank you!’ Emily called after her, but the woman was already bustling off into the night towards her cart and her other customers. It had been hard on her when her husband took the Gold and Red, but like all of them she managed.
‘Will you look at what this clumsy girl has done with my hair!’ Alice demanded. She had their father’s golden locks, while both her sisters had their mother’s darkly shining red, and she was altogether too aware of her striking looks. The war to Alice was merely an inconvenient rationing of suitors, as though the Parliament of Denland had set out purposefully to keep her from making a decent match.
‘Alice, leave the poor girl alone,’ Emily said.
Alice scowled at her. ‘Well, just look at me.’ She eyed her sister speculatively. ‘Better than you, though. At least my gown suits the occasion.’
‘Red? It’s not very tasteful,’ Emily said.
Alice stuck her tongue out. ‘Well, I think it’s patriotic, thank you very much. I want to impress the soldiers. When are they coming, anyway? They’d better not be late.’
‘They’re not coming because of you,’ Emily pointed out. ‘And they must be almost here. I saw their lights from upstairs. Cook, are you ready?’
‘I don’t know as I’ll ever be,’ replied their long-suffering cook, who did the work of three these days. ‘Which means, I s’pose, I’m ready as I’ll get.’
‘Where’s Mary?’
Cook indicated the front door with a jerk of her head.
‘In this cold, with the baby? She must be touched in the head.’ Emily went to the door and opened it a crack, feeling the chill course past her ankles. Sure enough, the eldest Marshwic sister was out by the stables, a tall, shrouded shape caught by the light cast from the house.
‘Mary come in at once. You’ll catch your death!’ Emily shouted to her. She saw a pale flash as Mary turned her face towards the house. Beyond her, the lanterns of the approaching men were weaving hazily through the mist.
‘Mary come on. Neither waiting nor watching will help them come any sooner.’ Or later, Emily added to herself. If it would, we’d both be standing out there.
She saw her sister turn and walk slowly back to the door, her face solemn. The baby clutched at her cloak with both tiny hands, its little red face screwed up against the cold.
Emily cast a glance about Grammaine’s spacious kitchen, seeing her whole life arrayed around it. Her sisters, Mary withdrawn and Alice fussing; Cook at the hearth and Jenna working at the imagined slight to Alice’s hair. There was Poldry, too, coming down the stairs in his shabby coat that he would never change until it fell apart altogether; while outside, she knew that Grant would be feeding a horse and getting it ready to travel.