She had helped Philip so much here when he had first inherited Shearings. Their Great-Uncle Joseph’s chief interest had been in new methods of farming, and Shearings’s gardens had lain neglected. She and Philip had worked so hard that first year to create this haven of flower beds and shaded walks, arbours and fountains. Emily sighed. She was genuinely happy that Philip had found Rosa. They were ideally suited. But it was sometimes difficult not to be nostalgic about the past.
Rosa snapped her parasol shut and turned to Emily, who saw the militant look in her sister-in-law’s eye and braced herself.
‘Now!’ she said. ‘Now you can tell me just what happened yesterday, if you please.’
‘I…I’ve told you.’
‘So you did. And I believed you. But that was before I heard about a stranger. A gentlemanly stranger.’
‘What…what has he to do with me?’
‘That is what you are going to tell me, Emily dear. I know you. You’re a bad liar. And I have a strong suspicion that you not only saw this “gentlemanly stranger” yesterday, but probably talked to him, too. Is that what made you so late?’ She stopped and looked closely at Emily. ‘Dear heaven, I hadn’t thought… He didn’t attack you, did he? Is he the cause of those bruises and scratches? Tell me, Emily, don’t be afraid.’
‘No, no! You’re quite wrong. I told you the truth about those. I got them when I climbed the tree. Most of them.’
‘And the rest?’ Rosa’s lovely face was unusually stern.
Emily heard the determination and realised that she was not going to get away with less than the truth.
‘You see too much, Rosa. I should have known you’d guess. Very well. I climbed up the tree as I told you and saw that I couldn’t get down. That was true. But you’re quite right. I didn’t tell you everything.’
‘Which was…?’
‘It seemed like hours before I saw someone coming, and when I did I took it to be Will Darby. I knew he would pass by on his way home so I called out to him and he came over. But…but it wasn’t Will Darby, after all.’
‘I knew it! It was this stranger,’ Rosa said.
Emily nodded. ‘He agreed to catch me if I jumped, but the branch broke, and we fell and rolled down the slope. That was when I got the rest of the scratches.’
‘Was he hurt?’
‘I…I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to be. He…he’s very strong.’
Rosa watched, fascinated, as Emily’s lips curved up in a small, reminiscent smile. ‘What…what happened then?’ she asked carefully.
‘I was dazed, of course. He waited until I felt better, then…’ Emily glanced briefly at Rosa and said, ‘Then I left him and came home.’
‘Alone? He didn’t offer to see you home safely? What a strange man he must be to leave you to find your own way after such a fall! He can’t have been much of a gentleman.’
‘No! No, you mustn’t think… He…he wanted to bring me home. I wouldn’t let him.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘He…he…he kissed me.’
‘Against your will? The heartless wretch!’
‘No… It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t at all like that!’
Emily got up and walked away. Her voice was muffled as she said, still not turning round, ‘I let him kiss me. Willingly.’
This surprised Rosa so much that for a moment she couldn’t say anything. Then she stammered, ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘Neither can I! Not now.’ Emily stood a moment with her back towards Rosa. When she turned round, she had a look of desperation on her face. ‘I don’t know what came over me, Rosa!’ she said in a stifled voice. ‘I’m not normally so…so idiotic. Perhaps it had all been too much for me—Mrs Gosworth, the bull, then falling from the tree…I don’t know! But, whatever the reason, I behaved like a…like a wanton. I must have been mad. How will I ever forget it?’
‘Of course you can. You were dazed, in shock. Don’t get upset, Emily! It was probably more difficult than you think to refuse him.’
‘But afterwards…I should have been angry, should have fought to get away from him as quickly as I could. But I didn’t.’ She fell silent and her face softened into a smile of remembrance. For a moment she looked…vulnerable. ‘I enjoyed it. He was so kind… so gentle… I felt so…so safe with him…so cherished… I didn’t push him away. I wanted him to kiss me again. And he did.’ She shook her head in a gesture of repudiation. ‘I’m still…so ashamed.’
Rosa got up and said softly, ‘Dearest Emily, you mustn’t be. I think it quite likely that the shock of the fall affected your behaviour yesterday. You were grateful to him, as well as dazed. I shouldn’t worry about the state of your morals! But there’s more to it than that.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’
As they walked through an avenue of trees planted by Philip’s great-grandfather nearly a hundred years before, Rosa said, ‘Mrs Gosworth can be very cruel indeed. I suffered at her hands quite badly. My first marriage, as you know, was an unhappy one. Stephen, my husband, was involved with some very disreputable people… Mrs Gosworth somehow or other heard about Stephen and when I visited her shortly after our marriage she hinted that I had ruined Philip’s life by marrying him, that the Winbolts’ reputation was irreparably damaged by associating with me. Philip had to work hard to reassure me afterwards that it was all nonsense—she can be very convincing.’
She stopped and looked at Emily. ‘You are one of the most level-headed people I know, Emily, but yesterday you were so angry with Mrs Gosworth that you forgot about a very dangerous bull and could have been killed. And afterwards, when you were telling me about the stranger, you said you had felt “cherished”. That’s a very unusual word for you. You are much more likely to insist on your independence. You must have felt the need of comfort quite badly. Tell me, Emily—what did Mrs Gosworth say to upset you so?’ When Emily said nothing she went on, ‘Was it about me? Did she suggest that your reputation had suffered because of your relationship to me? I must say, I thought Philip had put a stop to such talk when he saw her earlier this year.’
‘No, it was nothing like that.’
‘Perhaps she tried to suggest that you were unlikely to find a husband? That’s a favourite ploy of hers to any girl over the age of twenty.’
Emily said bitterly, ‘On the contrary. She suggested that I ought to marry as soon as possible. It shouldn’t be too difficult, she said, to find a husband for someone with a fortune like mine, even if they have little else to recommend them.’
Rosa was as angry as Emily had ever seen her. She said something under her breath, walked on a few paces, then exclaimed, ‘That woman is poisonous. She should have been chased out of the neighbourhood years ago! Little wonder that her own family refuses to go near her. Why the county continues to receive her I do not know! Emily, she is not worth a second thought.’
Emily
