‘Go ahead,’ said Miss Taylor, cupping her hand over the telephone mouthpiece. ‘I’ll only be five minutes or so.’
Emma walked through into the conservatory and examined the vines that had been trained up one side of the structure. The furniture, she noted, was shabby and would need to be replaced. And then she stopped. She had not seen him when she entered, but Frank Churchill was sitting in a chair at the far end. He had been reading a book, which fell to the ground when Emma came in.
For a long-drawn-out minute neither said anything. Then both spoke at once.
‘Oh,’ said Emma, and then, ‘Oh,’ again.
‘Um,’ said Frank. ‘So …’
They paused. Then Emma said, ‘I suppose you do live here.’
The remark seemed to surprise both of them.
‘I mean, here you are,’ said Emma.
Frank shrugged. ‘I’m staying here.’
‘Of course you are,’ said Emma.
The silence resumed, to be broken eventually by Frank, who said, ‘I think I should say sorry.’
Emma listened impassively as Frank continued. ‘I heard from my father that he had taken bottles of our wine to the picnic. I know now that you didn’t intend to show me up.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Emma, quick to assume the role of the wronged party. ‘That’s what I told you.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Frank. ‘But … well, I suppose I’m still a bit cross with you.’
‘But I didn’t know it was your wine.’
‘No, not about that – about something else.’
Emma was cautious. ‘What exactly?’
Frank had risen from his chair and had turned to look out of the conservatory window. His back was towards Emma.
He turned round again. ‘You shouldn’t have spoken to Jane.’
Emma’s mouth dropped.
‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘You shouldn’t. I told you what I told you in confidence. I didn’t expect you to go broadcasting it round half of England.’
Emma reddened. The back of her neck felt warm.
Frank continued with his accusation. ‘You told her that I wasn’t interested in women.’
She decided to defend herself. ‘That’s what you told me.’
‘Well, it’s not true,’ said Frank. ‘As it happens.’
Emma’s voice rose. ‘Then why did you tell me what you told me?’
Frank hesitated, and Emma noticed a certain sheepishness come over him. ‘I wanted to flirt with you without any … without any misunderstandings.’
It took her a moment or two to be offended. ‘Oh, I see. You wanted to use me?’
Frank nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I wanted Jane to see me getting on well with another girl.’ He paused. ‘I can see that you don’t believe me.’
‘No.’
‘Well, it’s true. I wanted to make Jane jealous because … well, you see, she and I have known each other for a couple of years—’
She interrupted him. ‘How …?’
‘We met in Australia. She came with a friend on a working visa. They worked in a hotel in Fremantle. I met her there. We kept in touch when she came back to England. Anyway, we were pretty close but she’d decided to give the relationship a rest.’
‘And you wanted to give her a shock?’
‘Yes. I wanted to show her that she wasn’t the only fish on the beach.’
‘Pebble,’ corrected Emma. ‘Fish in the sea. Pebble on the beach.’
‘Whatever.’
‘And did it work? This … strategy of yours?’
He nodded. ‘It did. We’re back together. But not without a big row over what you told her.’
Emma now understood, but she was uncertain what to say. Perhaps he was right in saying that she had betrayed a confidence, but then she reminded herself he had misled her, he had used her. Both of them, it seemed, had something to feel sorry about.
‘Yes,’ Frank continued. ‘You can just imagine. She accused me of deceiving her. She said that I should have told her right at the beginning. She asked me why I’d bothered with her if I wasn’t really interested. She started to cry.’
Emma winced.
‘But eventually I got through to her and explained. It took ages. Three days. But we sorted it out.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ said Emma. ‘I didn’t know that it would get out of hand.’
‘There’s more,’ said Frank.
Emma bit her lip. Her world suddenly seemed like a jersey from which a loose strand of wool had been pulled, resulting in the rapid unravelling of the whole. ‘Yes?’
‘She knows my friend, Geoff – the one I told you I was going to be travelling with.’
Emma waited.
‘And she told him that I had said I was gay and that she believed I fancied him.’
‘Oh.’
Frank spoke with heavy irony. ‘Yes. And that can really help a friendship, you know.’
Emma made a gesture of helplessness. ‘I don’t think you can blame me for that.’
‘What’s the point of blaming anybody? The whole thing’s a mess.’
Emma asked about Jane. ‘I suppose she hates me.’
‘Yes,’ said Frank. ‘Sorry about that.’
Emma said nothing. She hates me. It had never occurred to her that she might be disliked.
Frank sighed. ‘You may as well know: Jane and I are engaged.’
She tried to look pleased. ‘That’s really good news.’ It sounded flat. She repeated herself; it was still flat.
Miss Taylor came in. Emma noticed that she gave Frank an enquiring glance, and she interpreted this to mean that Miss Taylor knew and that she wanted to find out if Frank had told her about his engagement.
She was right. ‘I’ve told Emma,’ said Frank.
Emma looked at Miss Taylor. She felt the tears welling up in her eyes. Jane hated her: that had been spelled out to her. Frank took the view that she had grossly complicated his life through her indiscretion. Harriet regarded her as a rival, and Philip no doubt blamed her for his downfall and disgrace. Nobody, it seemed, liked her – apart from her father, and possibly George, and even then he had been cross about her rudeness to Miss Bates, even if he later gave her credit for trying to make amends.
All of these people, she thought, could so easily see me as an enemy. And she remembered something she had read in the newspaper that morning – an obituary for a Polish baker who had established a chain of cake shops and become a philanthropist. ‘He had no enemies,’ said the obituarist. The line, written often enough to become an obituary cliché, had stuck in her mind, and came back to her now. It could not be said of me, she thought, I have enemies to spare – all of my own making.
Miss Taylor realised that Emma was too distracted to continue with the task of advising on the redecoration of Randalls. Frank Churchill did not linger long in the conservatory after Miss Taylor came in, but mumbled an excuse about having to go to the gym and left.
‘What gym?’ Emma asked Miss Taylor after Frank had gone.
‘He doesn’t use a gym,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘It’s an entirely metaphysical gym, as many gyms are. A lot of people who talk about going to the gym actually have no idea where the gym is. It’s aspirational – what our dear, misguided Roman Catholic cousins would call an intention.’
‘So he just wanted to get away?’
Miss Taylor put an arm around her. ‘I believe he’s cross with you over some misunderstanding. Don’t pay too much attention to it.’
‘Everybody’s cross with me,’ said Emma. ‘Or so it seems.’
‘I don’t think so. I’m not. I’d never be.’
Emma felt the warm reassurance of her former governess’s presence. Nothing had changed, and she was eight once more, listening to Miss Taylor explaining the world, telling her not to be afraid. ‘I’m going to try to improve,’ she muttered. ‘I really am, this time.’
‘It’s not called improvemen
t,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘It’s called growing up. All of us do it – well, most of us, perhaps not absolutely all. There are some who never do. You can spot them if you survey the landscape.’
For a moment Emma pictured Miss Taylor gazing out over the countryside, searching, hawk-like, for immature personalities. But now Miss Taylor was looking at her with concern. ‘My little Emma,’ she said fondly. ‘Don’t be disheartened. Life isn’t an easy business for any of us, you know. We feel our way through it, and we make a lot of mistakes on the way. And when I use the word mistake, I don’t use it in the way in which politicians use it. They call their misdeeds – plain, old-fashioned misdeeds – mistakes. They aren’t. There’s a big difference between a mistake, which is all about harm that you didn’t intend, and a misdeed, which is harm that you did intend. A big difference.’
Emma listened.
‘Your mistake,’ continued Miss Taylor, ‘has been to interfere in the lives of others. It’s a common mistake – possibly the commonest mistake in the book – because it’s one that so many parents make. They try to make something of their child that the child doesn’t want to be. They try to hold on. They mean well, of course, but it’s a mistake. You’ve just made that mistake in another way, I suspect. I’ve watched you with Harriet Smith, you know.’
‘Harriet latched on to me.’
‘Of course she did – because you let her. She’s much weaker than you. You should have thought of that … Sorry, I don’t mean to upbraid you – I really don’t – but that’s what happened, isn’t it?’
Emma made a tiny, resigned sound, an acknowledgment of the truth of what had been said.
‘Yes?’ prompted Miss Taylor.
‘Yes.’ Emma was not going to argue. Miss Taylor had always been right. As Mr Woodhouse had once observed to Emma: ‘When Miss Taylor pronounces on something we must remember that it is really Edinburgh speaking, and speaking with all the authority of the Scottish Enlightenment, of Hume, of Adam Smith. We cannot argue with Edinburgh.’ But now she raised the fear that had been nagging away at her since that ill-fated trip to Cambridge. ‘Harriet says that George has invited her over to Donwell for lunch. Just her. Not me. Just her.’
Miss Taylor digested this information. ‘I see. Donwell. For lunch?’
‘For lunch. By herself. And she’s going to wear a cashmere jersey dress that I bought her in Cambridge. And suede ankle boots.’ Oh, the injustice of it, she thought, the sheer, crying injustice!
Miss Taylor had dropped the arm that she had placed round Emma’s shoulder; the physical closeness was gone, but now there was something more powerful than that: a complicity, in a sense, an acute understanding.
‘You’ve always liked George, haven’t you?’ said Miss Taylor. Her voice was measured, as would be the voice of a diagnostician.
‘Yes, I have.’
Miss Taylor took a step away and looked up at the vine, as if seeking inspiration from the plant. The grapes were far from ripe, but were there already, in luscious little clusters.
‘Wasn’t Harriet friendly with that young man from that hotel?’ asked Miss Taylor.
‘It’s just a B&B,’ said Emma.
Miss Taylor looked at her sharply. ‘They think it’s a hotel,’ she said. ‘That’s what they want it to be. Maybe that means something to them.’
Emma was chastened. ‘I’m sorry. Yes, that hotel. He’s called Robert Martin.’
‘And what happened?’ asked Miss Taylor.
Emma did not answer. Miss Taylor repeated her question. ‘What happened, Emma?’
Emma took a deep breath. ‘I ruined it for her,’ she said. ‘I put her off him.’ She stared at Miss Taylor defiantly, as if to challenge her to react to what she had said.
But Miss Taylor did not scold her; she simply shook her head. ‘I suspect you know what to do,’ she said.
Emma waited.
‘I’m not going to spell it out,’ said Miss Taylor. ‘I’m no longer your governess. You’re going to have to make your own decision here and act accordingly.’
‘Please …’
‘No. Definitely not. And I don’t think we should try to make any decorating decisions today.’
Emma went back to the Mini Cooper and drove down the drive. Miss Taylor watched her from the drawing-room window, with James Weston at her side.
‘Will you play the piano for me?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘What would you like?’
‘ “Take a pair of sparkling eyes”,’ he said.
The Oak Tree Inn served lunch in the bar. The day’s specials, chalked up on a small blackboard in the shape of a fish, were potted shrimps, steak and kidney pie, and sticky toffee pudding. There were several customers already eating when Emma arrived, although it was barely midday. She did not feel particularly hungry, as she had eaten a late breakfast, but she nonetheless took a seat at the one of the small bar tables and began to study the menu. The choice was a large one for a small hotel, but it was only the steak and kidney pie and the sticky toffee pudding that appealed to her.
The bar was unattended when she arrived, but within a couple of minutes a door slammed somewhere and a young man appeared. Emma recognised Robert Martin, who spotted her, smiled, and came over to her table. He was wearing a white apron of the sort sometimes worn by French waiters, and he had a small notebook in his hand.
‘Emma?’
She returned his smile.
‘I thought it was you,’ he said. ‘It’s just I didn’t expect to see you here.’
‘I’ve been meaning to come for some time. I felt hungry and thought: why not?’
He opened the notebook. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘No. I saw you the other day in the village, but you didn’t see me. Obviously.’
‘No. Have you finished at Bath?’
‘Yes. That’s it. The world of work beckons now. And you?’
‘I did a hospitality course in Norwich.’ He made a gesture to encompass the bar and the hotel. ‘It’s for this place.’
She nodded. She had been studying him discreetly. He was rather good-looking, she thought; he used to be a bit too thin, she thought, but now he had grown into himself – that was Miss Taylor’s expression: You’ll grow into yourself. She and Isabella had not really known what it meant, but had taken comfort in it as an assurance that somehow everything would be all right. And have I grown into myself now? she asked herself. Have I?
‘I’d better get on,’ said Robert, nodding in the direction of the kitchen. ‘We’re short-handed. We’ve got one Polish girl at the moment and that’s it.’
‘They work so hard,’ said Emma, and thought, Unlike me.
Robert agreed. ‘She’s fantastic.’
Emma placed her order, which appeared on her table quickly. At the end of the meal, as Robert took away her plate, she said what she had come to say. ‘Do you get any time off? This afternoon?’
The question took him by surprise. ‘Yes. A bit. I have to be back to help with dinner, though.’
‘Of course.’
‘Why?’
She tried to seem casual. ‘Because I wondered if you’d like to drop by my place. Tea, maybe.’
He looked at his watch. ‘I could come at four, or maybe a bit earlier.’
‘Do you play tennis?’
‘I used to – a bit.’
‘Bring trainers.’
She rose from her chair and gave him her credit card for the bill. He seemed puzzled by her invitation, but was polite. A certain distance, though, crept into his tone, as may happen when one accepts an invitation that one is not sure about, that is suspected of concealing an agenda.
Emma left. Now she telephoned Harriet and issued her invitation. Again she was careful to sound casual. ‘If you’re dong nothing, come round to my place. I’ll maybe ask one or two other people. Tea – something like that. Maybe a game of tennis – bring some trainers. We’ve got racquets.’
‘I didn’t know you had a t
ennis court.’
‘We do. It’s at the back of the house, near one of the barns. I hardly ever use it. I’m a hopeless player.’
Harriet said that she would come by bicycle. One of the students had lent her an electric bicycle and she would ride over on that.
‘It’s such fun to use,’ Harriet said. ‘I’ll give you a go, Emma, if you’d like. You can have a go and I’ll watch.’
It was such a childish invitation, thought Emma, but then she said, ‘Thanks, Harriet, I’d love to. You could show me how.’
‘Oh, it’s easy. It’s just like riding a bicycle.’
‘It is a bicycle.’
‘Oh, silly me, of course it is.’
Mr Woodhouse said, ‘I’m going out. What are you doing?’
‘I’ve invited a couple of people round. We might play tennis later on.’
They looked at each other with interest; he because he wondered who her guests would be, and she because he very rarely went out.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Harriet.’
‘And who else?’
‘Robert Martin – you know, his parents run the Oak Tree Inn. They …’
‘I know exactly who they are,’ said Mr Woodhouse. ‘They had the health inspectors in there last year. They looked very closely at the kitchen.’
‘I’m sure it’s pretty clean. It seems well run.’
‘Oh, I’m not suggesting that it’s not well run, but why, one wonders, would the health inspectors be there? Somebody must have called them.’
She did not think that this necessarily followed. ‘They can do random checks. If I were a health inspector, I’d descend without notice.’
‘In my view,’ said Mr Woodhouse, ‘somebody must have experienced a stomach problem and reported it. Diarrhoea. I read that book about what goes on in restaurants and hotel kitchens. Yes, I read all about it. It would make your hair stand on end. Apparently twenty per cent of people who eat in restaurants get diarrhoea as a result. Twenty per cent, Emma!’ He paused to allow the statistic to sink in. ‘Now that’s an average across the country – just imagine, just imagine what the figure for London must be like. Much, much higher. Probably something of the order of fifty or sixty per cent, I should imagine.’ He shook his head at the thought. ‘One eats at one’s peril in London.’
Emma: A Modern Retelling Page 29