Emeralds & Ashes

by Leila Rasheed

  “How sweet he is,” Georgiana said with a smile. “To think what those eyes have seen already, and yet I expect he looks at Palesbury Station with the same wonder with which he looked at the Pyramids.”

  Rose laughed. “Yes, he is a joy. I wonder if he will recognize Alexander? I suppose not, but I can’t help hoping he will.” She added in sudden anxiety. “Oh, I do hope nothing is wrong. His train is late, I’m sure.”

  “I believe it’s just the station clock,” Georgiana said. “Don’t fret, Rose; I am sure the train will be here soon. We should cross to the other platform.”

  They walked over the bridge together, to the platform where the train from London would arrive. Soon after they reached it, the bell on the platform rang. Rose gasped, and caught hold of Georgiana’s arm.

  “I’m so silly—forgive me. I don’t know why I’m nervous,” she said with a slight laugh. “It is just to think how he may have changed…”

  “You are thinking of Sebastian, I know.”

  “I am. I am so grateful that he is alive, of course. It is a piece of luck that we never dreamed of, to find him here at Somerton under our very noses.…But…”

  “It breaks all our hearts, that he is blinded,” Georgiana said soberly.

  “Not only that. He is different. Sadder and older, somehow.” Her voice trembled. “I could not bear it if Alexander had been changed in some way, had become different, so that we no longer understood each other.…There will always be things he cannot speak to me about.”

  Georgiana looked at her in sympathy. “However he may have been changed by the things he has seen and suffered, I know that his love for you will not have wavered. Besides,” she said thoughtfully, picturing Sebastian, guided by Oliver and Ada, walking in the garden just that morning, “despite everything, I think Sebastian is happy, because of Oliver. That is all one needs really, isn’t it? To have the people one loves close, and safe.…” She broke off as she heard the distant whistle of the train.

  “Oh, the train is nearly here!” Rose caught at Georgiana’s arm. “If only he is on it as he said he would be. I’ve heard of men who were killed the day before they took their leave.…Oh, I am silly, forgive me. Please let him be on this train!”

  The train was in sight now, a plume of white clouds over its head, glinting in the sun as it sped toward them. A wild hoot, and then it was pumping into the station, steam embracing them like friendly ghosts, and the smell of soot everywhere.

  “I can’t see him.” Rose peered through the steam. “Oh, what if…”

  Then the wreaths of steam dissolved, and Georgiana saw someone coming toward them along the platform—someone with an unruly mop of dark hair under his cap, dressed in khaki and loaded with kit bags. He was thinner than she remembered him, and wore a tired, serious expression on his face, but there was no doubt. It was Alexander.

  Rose released her arm and ran toward him. He dropped his bags and swept her into his arms, their lips meeting. Georgiana’s eyes filled with tears of happiness as the steam veiled them once again. Then, after a long moment, she heard their voices, their happy laughter mingled with Rose’s sobs of joy, as they came along the platform toward her. They appeared through the steam like spirits coming from another world in the clouds, their arms locked together tight as if they would never let each other go.

  Georgiana smiled at the sight of the happiness on both their faces. “Don’t spend a moment with me,” she told Alexander at once. “Only let me say how glad I am to see you—and now you must go to the motorcar.”

  “Oh yes, you must see how much Edward has grown!” Rose said, still wiping the tears from her face. “I don’t know why I am crying! It must be the relief.”

  Alexander gave Georgiana a warm smile and then went to the motorcar. Georgiana was struck by the exhaustion on his face. It hadn’t been more than a year, but she could already see he was deeply marked by his experiences. At least, though, he was safe. Full of sympathy, she followed them to the motorcar and spoke to the chauffeur. “Please drive the duke and duchess back to Somerton. I will walk—it’s a pleasant day for it.”

  Rose and Alexander were already in the car, Alexander with Edward in his arms. Alexander looked up. “Are you sure you will walk? It is a long way—”

  “Nonsense!” Georgiana interrupted, laughing. “It isn’t at all, and besides, can you imagine that I would intrude on your reunion?”

  Alexander smiled gratefully, and then turned back to his son. The motorcar drove off, and Georgiana lifted a hand in farewell.

  Left alone, with the birdsong and the distant bleating of lambs the only sounds to stir the peace, she sighed, all at once feeling a little lonely.

  She turned to the gate that led from the lane to the fields, meaning to walk back across the sunny hill, which was covered in buttercups and daisies, rich with the humming of bees. But as she unlatched it, she saw that someone was coming down the hill toward her. She needed to wonder only for a moment before she recognized the figure. It was Michael.

  “Hello,” he greeted her, out of breath as he hurried to meet her. “I expect Alexander’s train has arrived? I saw the motorcar in the lane, from the top of the hill.”

  “Yes, it has, and they are going back to Somerton. I’m sorry you missed them.”

  “Oh, I didn’t come for Alexander. I shall see him at dinner, I’m sure. No, I thought you would probably walk back—and I thought you might like some company.”

  Georgiana was startled, but pleased. “Of course, I’d be delighted.”

  They set off up the hill, Michael walking with his hands in his pockets. Georgiana glanced at him sideways. “It’s not like you to be so chivalrous,” she teased him.

  “No, I know—but perhaps I should be more so,” he replied. “At any rate, you deserve some chivalry, so I should make an effort.”

  Georgiana found a blush on her face, and looked away. He probably meant nothing by it, she scolded herself. They walked on without speaking, Georgiana’s skirt swishing through the grass. It was pleasant to walk in this comfortable silence, with the sun warming them. She smiled to herself, thinking of the way that Thomas had said good-bye to Rebecca. There was true love there too, she was sure of it. Once she had been romantic, now she was not sure what she was, but she still believed in true love.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Michael said.

  “Oh…I was just thinking how much we have to be grateful for.”

  “A good deal indeed,” Michael said gravely. They walked on in silence for a while. Georgiana had the feeling that Michael was trying to find the words to say something; he frowned, and his hands were dug deep in his pockets. At last he glanced at her, and said awkwardly, almost angrily, “I hope you are not too disappointed in Captain Wyndham.”

  Georgiana was surprised. Surely, she thought, Michael knew by now how she felt about the man. “I certainly am disappointed. How could he be so lost to all sense of honor, all decency, all—”

  “But I meant,” said Michael, breaking into her speech, “that I hope you are not too greatly disappointed yourself—your heart, I mean.”

  “Oh!” They had reached the top of the hill, which was crossed by a hedge. Georgiana followed Michael up onto the stile. Michael jumped down onto the grass, but she stood where she was for a moment, poised at the highest point for miles around, looking down at Somerton Court’s great beautiful sprawl of stone, embraced by the fields and the stream. The wind ruffled her hair and the leaves of the hedge. She spoke without thinking. “Oh, dear Michael, if only you knew how little my heart cares for anything, so long as I’m with you.”

  She almost bit her tongue. She had not meant to be so frank. But Michael turned to her with a smile. Georgiana, still perched on the stile, found herself looking down into his handsome face, his warm eyes. She was conscious of how close he was, the wind freshening his cheeks and tousling his hair, and the way his eyes were shining as he looked at her made her blush.

  “I wonder what the future will
hold,” she said quickly. “For us, and for Somerton. I’ve often thought how sad it would be if the war meant I were never to dance here again—at Somerton, I mean.”

  Instead of answering, Michael reached up and took her hand. She stepped down from the stile onto the grass as if onto the polished floor of a ballroom.

  “No war will ever stop me dancing with you,” he said. Then he took her in his arms, and they were waltzing, on the top of the hill where the wildflowers bloomed. The wind and the lark’s song all danced together through Georgiana’s heart as he kissed her, like the most beautiful music any orchestra could ever have played.

  Somerton

  The long hot day was beginning to tell on Ada’s spirits. After their joyful welcome of Alexander, he and Rose had disappeared with little Edward for a long walk on the grounds before dinner. Michael and Georgiana, who had come back quite flushed and tired after their walk, had vanished too. That left her to while away the afternoon in the conservatory with the countess. She had some letters to write, but the countess was in the mood for talking—more specifically, in the mood for complaining about Charlotte.

  “It is very hard to feel that she has made this foolish choice, after all my efforts,” she went on now, continuing a conversation that Ada had tried not to encourage.

  “But do you really think it foolish? Captain MacAllister seems a very solid man, and they are certainly in love.”

  “Love is all very well, but Charlotte is brought up to be a lady. She will not be happy for long, with just one maid and living in that poky little cottage near the aerodrome that they expect to move into after they are married.”

  “I think it is a delightful place, so convenient and easy to manage.” Ada was aware she wasn’t pleasing the countess, but she was not willing to criticize Charlotte. She had never liked her stepsister before, but it was easy to see that her experiences had changed her profoundly—or perhaps just drawn out the good qualities that had always been there. She had always suspected that much of Charlotte’s unpleasantness had been created in her by her mother’s fixation on marrying her off.

  “Oh! I daresay you do. I daresay you think that anything is good enough for Charlotte, since she is not an Averley.”

  “I didn’t say that. I—”

  “Of course you have nothing to worry about,” the countess went on poisonously. “Your father was very generous to you in his will.”

  Ada swallowed. The countess did not know that all her inheritance had gone to the bottom of the sea with William, and the memory of it stirred Ada’s insecurity. She had more to worry about than the countess realized. Certainly the question of how she was to support herself was not at all answered. Without a degree, which Oxford would not award her or any woman, she could not practice as a lawyer.

  The countess saw that her blow had somehow hit home, and pressed on. “Yes, you are quite a catch now that you have your inheritance, so I don’t expect you will be at Somerton Court much longer, expecting me to feed you and house you. I should advise you to use your fortune to settle yourself swiftly in a comfortable future—I mean marriage, of course. Ten thousand pounds does not go as far as you think it does.”

  “Not half as far,” said Ada wryly. It hadn’t even made it to America.

  “Exactly my point.” The countess gave her a piercing glance. “What do you plan to do, Ada? When will you give up Oxford and find someone to marry? To be sure, having refused Lord Fintan it is hard to see who could please you—just imagine, if you had married him, you would be a very rich widow by now.”

  Ada swallowed her anger at the countess’s insensitive words. Yet she knew that the countess had a point; that was what made her words so painful to hear. She did need to find some way of keeping herself financially maintained. It was not as if she needed much—just a modest amount for lodging, books, clothes, and food—but at the moment she had no idea how she would even find that small amount. Her father had set up a fund to pay for her remaining years of education, but after that, she did not know what she would do. It was out of the question to accept Connor’s generosity, though she knew he would always give it. It was equally impossible to impose on Georgiana or Rose. No, she had said she wanted to be independent and earn her own money, and she would stick to that. The question was, how? She did not like to admit that she did not have perfect faith in the future—but she was anxious.

  “I don’t want to marry at all,” she said to the countess. She tried to keep the resentment out of her voice. “At least, not now. I would prefer not to speak about it any longer.”

  The countess looked annoyed, but before she could reply, Mollie the maid appeared at the door. “A letter for you, Lady Ada,” she said with a curtsy that was much more polished than it had been when she arrived. Rebecca had clearly been training her.

  “Thank you, Mollie.” Ada took the letter, glad of the distraction. Neither the postmark nor the handwriting was familiar. She took the silver paper knife from the table and opened the envelope. A quick glance told her that it was from someone called the Marquess of Castlehardie. The name was vaguely familiar, and after a few moments she remembered: she had once heard Hannah mention him, though she could not remember in what context. She wondered why he was writing to her. They had never been introduced, and she knew nothing about him.

  The first few paragraphs of the letter gave her little clue; they were the usual: condolences on her father’s death, greetings and pleasantries. But when she began reading the second sheet, she froze. She had to read the words over again before she could dare to believe them.

  I do not involve myself in public life, and so you may not know that I am a keen supporter of women’s emancipation. I therefore like to employ women where I can. I am funding a defense of two prominent suffragettes who have been accused of conspiring against the Crown—quite unjustly, I believe—and I was very impressed with your work on the Kearney case. I wondered if you would allow me to retain your services for the duration of the case? I would, of course, remunerate you appropriately for your time and expertise. If this offends you, I apologize. However, if you have the time and inclination, I would be very grateful for your help.…

  Ada needed to read no more. Instantly she had realized what it meant. It was her first paid work, and it meant that the long, hard struggle for an education equal to a man’s would be worth it. It meant success. It meant hope. It meant that when she completed her course of studies, there would be people who would employ her and enable her to earn a living independently.

  She folded the letter, aware that the color was high in her cheeks. She looked up at the countess, who was watching her closely. “I understand your concern for your daughter and appreciate your concern for me,” she said, hearing the ring of quiet confidence in her own voice for the first time. “But you must understand, I shall never marry for money. I shall earn my own. I shall be independent.”

  The countess gave a disbelieving sniff. But Ada did not care. She had seen the future. She had seen it between the lines of the old marquess’s letter. And against the darkness of the present, it shone like a jewel with promise.

  LEILA RASHEED is the British author of the first two books in the At Somerton series, Cinders & Sapphires and Diamonds & Deceit, and of the middle grade novel Chips, Beans and Limousines and its sequels. She was previously a children’s bookseller in Brussels, but now writes and teaches creative writing full-time.