Chapter Seventeen
Emily
The months that followed were lovely for Emily.
Not perfect, of course. The hospital was unchanged, the founders as hypocritically out of touch as usual and the troublesome nurse more vindictive than ever when she heard Emily had been taken seriously enough to secure a private patient.
But home was something else entirely. Emily and her father cleaned the place from top to bottom. Not too quickly. Not too drastically. But really scrubbing out some of the lingering dust balls, making Noah’s bedroom fit for more generic company, and finding more dignified places to display or store Mother’s things.
“To be honest,” Papa said with a guilty sigh as he picked up the old sewing basket that had driven Noah to the edge of his patience, “she wouldn’t have left it there.”
“Really?” Emily blurted, shocked. “I thought that was its dedicated place!”
“No, she was like you. An exceptionally tidy woman through most of her life. She kept this in the cupboard next to the piano so it would be nearby, but not unsightly. It was just that carrying twins made her charmingly lazy those last weeks of it, and she didn’t want to bother with even the few steps back and forth.”
Working on the place at last, Papa proved to be full of these sweet little stories. It seemed to do him good to speak them at last, and it certainly did Emily good to hear them.
In the evenings, she spent a lot of time writing letters. Some were to her brother, updating him on the progress they’d made and the stories she’d heard. He seemed to like them too, and had dropped a few hints that he might consider a visit, to see if what she said about the state of their cottage was true.
The other letters, of course, were to the increasingly dear Miss Jo.
As time went on, that small and hopeful voice within her proved to be a wise one indeed. Their letters continued to sparkle and soothe, punctuated by several more visits to London, occasionally even at times when she did not have an appointment with her patient or plans with her community. When she could spare the time, she went just for Jo, just to see her for lunch or a walk, to be decadent together, and quaint together, before their lives called them back.
With both these aspects of her life growing so wonderfully full, she was struck by a strong desire to combine them at last. As her father had been so generous with his speech now that it was not weighed down with despair, she too had become more open, admitting to him the nature of her companion. She was not worried about his reaction being negative, but it was actually far more positive than she’d dared to dream.
And so, well...she found herself daring to dream a little more.
November fell more freezing than bracing, and with it came the London Society for Spiritual Freedom’s talk on criticisms of the nativity narrative. Papa had been so looking forward to this one that not even the effect of the chill on his joints could keep him home this time.
While Emily doubted that talks on biblical criticism were the holiday festivities that Jo would choose for herself, it promised to be a lighter lecture than most of the others and therefore her best opportunity to see these two lights of her life—her family and her lover—meet and be joined in friendship at last.
Jo agreed. The acceptance was so thrilling that Emily was eager to the point of ridiculous when the time came to catch the train. She hurried Papa along all morning until they arrived at the station dreadfully early.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as they watched the slow progress of the clock behind the station counter, not obstructed by the movements of too many passengers, since Godalming Station had only one line and no one with any sense was here for their departure yet.
Papa smiled and shook his head. “It’s just good to know that there’s somewhere you wish to be so eagerly.”
Even Rochelle Baptiste came along, unable to resist Emily’s insistence that everyone even close to being a member of the family be together for this holiday event. She joined them at the station at a more reasonable time, though, closer to when the rest of the passengers were showing up with valises, trunks, and children in tow. Rochelle kissed their cheeks and settled her comparatively excessive luggage with the attendants. Aggressively French as she always appeared, as if afraid Farncombe’s very English nonconformist community might forget who she really was, her traveling clothes were lacier, lighter, and much harder to beat soot out of than they ought to have been. It made Emily smile, and think suddenly of Miss Garcia. There were some charming similarities between the two. Rochelle had been a close companion of her father for many years now—around at the holidays and even permitted to use Noah’s chair when she visited. She had never married into the Clarke family but was certainly part of it. Likewise, Miss Garcia, with her strange and uncomfortable connection with Mr. Smith, was not technically Jo’s family but still held a certain place in the extended part of it. She liked the thought that Jo would finally meet the more showy, ostentatious little corner of her community after Emily had spent so much time with Jo’s actress.
Emily boarded the train with her mind full of these sentimental dreams: of the happier but still quiet cottage suddenly filled with all manner of odd, unofficial relations, sipping lemonade in the garden and telling Papa to give his talk of greens and guinea pigs a rest.
The idea was almost unbearably exciting, so Emily tried to distract herself with a decidedly decadent gift Jo had sent along recently—a morally and intellectually useless adventure story that she’d rebound to look like it was a philosophical treatise.
The train chugged to a stop at Waterloo Station, so much more packed and cavernous than the humble one they’d come from. Once they’d made it off the platform with their luggage cart, Emily scanned the crowd. Though they weren’t the most outlandish pair she’d seen in a London train station, Jo and Noah still weren’t hard to spot, standing near a coffee cart in their daring clothes, passing a cigarette between them and laughing at some shared joke like the friends Emily sometimes forgot they were.
She felt a ruffle of jealousy, but it didn’t last long. She and Jo actually had jokes of their own now, didn’t they? Cordial meetings. Women’s medical college. The rebound novel. Something more than mere excitement was growing in Emily’s chest. It had her footsteps close to scurrying as she pushed the cart toward them.
As soon as Jo spotted her, she dropped the cigarette and stamped on it while Noah gaped like she’d crushed a small animal beneath her boot. Jo didn’t notice his dismay; her dark eyes and happy smile were all Emily’s. Emily wanted to leave the cart in the middle of everything, sprint the remaining distance, and throw herself into a swoony embrace worthy of the rebound dime novel in her bag. She did not do that, because she did not really do those sorts of things, but she had her own version: steering the cart too fast for Papa and Rochelle to keep up, nudging it into Noah’s care, and indulging in a deliciously soft embrace that warmed through the chill of the platform as it warmed her dreams. When Jo kissed her, quick and without shame like a European, Emily flushed with all the secret meanings that such a seemingly innocent gesture really meant between them.
Jo reluctantly released Emily, and shoved her gloved hands into the spacious pockets of her gentleman’s coat. “Glad you’re here.”
Emily grinned. “Even though I’m dragging you to a talk on biblical criticism?”
“The Bible criticizes me enough.” Jo shrugged. “It’s well past time I settled the score.”
“Oh, dio mio,” said Noah as he adjusted the askew luggage. “This is going to be an interesting weekend, isn’t it?”
“Is David joining us tomorrow?” Emily asked.
“We’ll see. He’s been...well, you know, he’s been very tired. It’s been a difficult week. We’ll see if he’s feeling up to it.”
She drew breath to scold Noah for his characteristic selfishness, still putting off the country respite that David needed just because he preferred to be in the city. But she stopped herself. His recent letters indicated that he was softening on that, now that changes had been made to the house he’d grown up in. If she did not scold or put undue pressure on him, would he do as he did before? Would he step up and take care of something practical and familial, even if it took him a little longer than Emily would have liked?
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Emily simply. “If it’s of any help, please tell him that I treasure his place in our family, and would be happy to help in whatever way I can to ensure he is up to coming along.”
Noah looked stunned, gaping for words he couldn’t find. The appearance of Papa and Rochelle saved him. Emily, a bit guilty over having left the older pair chasing her dust across the crowded platform, let Noah alone to process her words while she tended to the thing she’d been looking forward to for weeks now:
Introductions.
“Jo, my dear Jo,” she said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice as she took the other woman’s hand. “I am so pleased to introduce you to my father, Dr. Phillip Clarke,” she said, grinning a little wildly. “And this is my family friend, and my father’s—”
“My dear traveling companion, Madame Rochelle Baptiste,” Papa interrupted as pleasantly as possible, as if he didn’t trust his children not to sneak their own opinions into the introduction.
Emily didn’t appreciate the lack of decorum, but Jo seemed buoyed by it, forgoing politeness to extend her hand and say, “Miss Jo Smith. A pleasure, Dr. Clarke. Madame Baptiste.”
Though it rankled Emily a bit that everyone had gone off-script, Papa and Rochelle looked duly impressed by Jo’s lack of conformity, and Jo seemed satisfied by theirs as well. And as the odd-looking group of them left the station in search of a carriage, Emily felt like her train-station daydreams were coming true before her eyes. Rochelle and Jo’s presence thickened the Clarkes’ familial bonds like a hearty starch added to fresh ointment. She felt that if only they could get David to come along tomorrow, their mother’s ghost could put her feet up and relax at last, content that the rest of them would hold together well enough on their own.
While Papa and Rochelle were staying at their usual inn near the West End’s Unitarian meeting house, Emily put her name down with great finality at Miss Withers’s for two nights and several meals. Her valise was feeling awfully heavy, so she had Jo help her get it into her room, made up all tidy and perfect once again with two cups beside the water pitcher.
“No escape now, is there?” said Jo, once she’d tossed the valise on the bed and pinned Emily up tight against the blue-papered wall. She kissed her deeply and indulgently for just long enough to chase the chill of the streets from both their bodies. Their lunches and walks had been so lovely, but it had been far too long since they’d had this. Emily’s head spun. Her hands traced and grabbed and slid into back pockets as Jo’s lips moved down her jaw, Jo’s fingers pushing at the high neck of her blouse, looking for more skin to nip and nose at. “You’ve told Miss Withers you’ll be here for at least three separate meals. You’re contracted into my clutches, now.”
Jo’s clutches were nothing to complain about, so Emily accepted them quite willingly, kissing, caressing, and downright reveling in the hot physicality, deliciously human after weeks of nothing but the touch of her paper and ink.
Jo was just getting down to the one-woman job that was the removal of Emily’s traveling clothes, when the chime of the grandfather clock downstairs made Emily start.
“Oh heavens,” she gasped, stealing her buttons back from Jo’s eager fingers and putting them to rights. “Stop it. I’ve got an appointment with Miss Garcia coming up first on the agenda today, and you’re going to make me late.”
“She and I were late meeting you the first time.” Jo went for the bottom button of Emily’s jacket instead, efficiently undoing Emily’s rebuttoning as it occurred. “It’s only fair.”
Emily swatted her hands away in a giggling battle that ended in Jo grabbing her chin again in that delightfully rough way and planting a kiss to Emily’s mouth. Emily pulled away more slowly than she should have. “I don’t care about fair. I care about correct. A little anticipation will make it all the more pleasurable when we get back to it. There’s scholarship on this, you know.”
Jo cocked a dark brow. “Really?”
“Oh yes. A month or so in between dalliances is actually recommended for the greatest delight in the long run. We might even benefit from a longer hiatus, since we don’t have the pressure of populating the Earth while we’re at it.”
It seemed to take Jo a second to realize Emily was kidding, but when she did, she grabbed Emily’s chin again and gave her a smiling, aggressive kiss that made Emily agree that even one more night was probably too long a wait.
“Alright,” Emily said. “Let’s go.”
Jo blinked. “Let’s? You mean both of us?”
“Well, of course,” Emily said. “It’s your house we’re going to, isn’t it? She’s finally moved in, and thank goodness for that!”
“Um, Emily...” Jo scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. “Look, I don’t think—”
“Is there a problem?”
Jo seemed to think that over for a bit, glancing around the room until her eyes settled on the fine little clock that was hung beside the wardrobe. “N-no, actually. It’s fine. I’ll escort you there, to make sure you can find the place, and we’ll make it quick.”
“Make it quick? Why?”
Jo tugged gently at the hem of her jacket, the concern on her face returning to a devious smile. “I think you know why, Princess.”
They made their way up the slightly-too-treacherous staircase to Jo and Mr. Smith’s rooms.
“Will Mr. Smith be here?”
“I think not,” Jo said with an odd note in her voice. “No. It’s not the right time.”
Well, that was a shame. After how beautifully the introduction with her father had gone, it would be nice to get a similar introduction to Mr. Smith sometime soon. Bit odd, of course, that a husband should be the family to meet, but such was their circumstance. Emily was too busy bubbling with happy nerves to care about this detail.
Still, she tried to keep her head on. She was here in just as much a professional capacity as a personal one. She took out her pad of paper, jotting down a note on the state of the stairs—the handrail could use some tightening, if it was to be safe enough for a mother-to-be...
“Are you writing notes already?” Jo asked, turning around on the staircase. Emily peered up at her, only a few steps behind.
“I should hate to forget.” Emily went on writing and stairclimbing. When she got second-from-the-top, just behind Jo, she leaned her chin on Jo’s shoulder for a brief and smiling moment before the door opened and she pecked the most rapid of kisses against her coat collar.
When Miss Garcia opened the door, she was looking distinctly rounder than the last time Emily had seen her, though her skirts had been adjusted so that there was some deniability as to whether it was her love of layered dresses or love of men’s company that caused the change. She greeted them with her customary queenly decorum, and led Emily and Jo into a small apartment filled with some of the most outlandish décor Emily had ever seen in a private home. Her brother’s dramatic Arts and Crafts aesthetic seemed suddenly quite tame compared to Persian rugs, gilded statuary, and a bare-breasted mermaid positioned near the doorway to hold the coats.
It was horrible in all the best ways, and decidedly appropriate for Jo. While Jo put on a show of ambivalence about her living situation, it was probably a place she liked very much.
Jo grinned and began to say something about the mermaid, but a man’s voice from the room’s far end made her stop dead in her tracks.
“Darling,” he said, crossing the floor on gangly legs to help ease Miss Garcia into one of the ostentatious chairs by the fireplace. “I could have let them in. There’s no need for you to sprint around doing everything.”
“For heaven’s sake, Paul. Quit fussing,” Miss Garcia said, though she looked distinctly pleased by the fussing. “Thanks to Dr. Clarke, I have regained so much of my old energy.”
Mr. Smith managed to tear his eyes away from his love long enough to find Emily and Jo at the threshold. When he did, he froze as completely as Jo had, twin statues across the room from each other.
“Jo?” he said. “What are you doing here? I thought you wanted—”
“I’m simply the escort,” Jo said sharply. “It’s a little tricky getting here from the station. I wanted to make sure she found her way.”
Mr. Smith shook his head like he was trying to shake a fly out of his ear. “How did that fall to you, exactly?”
Jo stuffed her hands in her pockets. “We’re friends.”
His confusion lessoned Emily’s buoyancy. Had Jo not even mentioned they’d struck up so much as a friendship?
Well, that was alright, she supposed. She straightened her spine. Perhaps she’d thought it best to explain that to him now, while they were all together.
Content enough with that notion, Emily eyed the fellow curiously. He was excessively dandified with his slick blond hair and mustache, his garishly patterned jacket and purple snakeskin boots. But though he had marked himself so clearly a decadent, a pornographer, and the entirely wrong sort of nonconformist, there was something unexpectedly gentle in the way he tucked a shawl around Miss Garcia’s shoulders and passed her a mug of tea that was perfectly within reach on the table before her.
“I know her glowing, maternal beauty is distracting,” said Jo dryly, “but I’m afraid you must tear your eyes away at least long enough to meet Dr. Clarke.”
Emily’s head snapped in Jo’s direction. It had been a long time indeed since Jo had called her that, and it was unpleasantly jarring.
Paul Smith looked at Emily as if he’d just noticed her—though of course that was nonsense. Still, he went along with his own act, putting a hand to his chest and pretending to sweep a nonexistent hat off his head as he fell into an extravagant, courtly bow.
“Dr. Clarke!” He stood upright and came over to shake her hand in both of his, firm and without hesitation, like equals. “I should kiss your boots if I thought it appropriate. I am grateful beyond all respectable reactions that you stepped outside your usual specialty for the sake of Miss Garcia’s health. I know she’s doing the best she can with payment, but since it’s—” his eyes drifted briefly to Jo and back again “—since it’s my house that you’re visiting now, I’ll see to it that you’re paid as is more fitting for your extensive experience and education.”
Emily just nodded, quite taken aback. While everything about this man should repel her, she found herself at ease with him. He had not looked her up and down in suspicion (or, heaven forbid, something more untoward). He was not questioning her credentials like husbands and fathers invariably did at the village hospital. He was not trying to get unnecessary charity work out of her, figuring her sex meant she did not want to be paid. And while there was an air of absurdity to him, he seemed sincere.
That was...unusual.
It was refreshing.
Most shockingly, she thought she might actually grow to like the man.
If, of course, Jo would quit standing there and introduce them properly.
Emily cleared her throat. Jo did not respond, so she did it again, nudging her slightly with the doctor bag. Jo looked confused, and Emily’s face grew hot.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Emily whispered in as friendly a manner as possible.
Jo cocked a brow. “Didn’t I?”
“Not really, no,” Emily snapped.
Jo rolled her eyes, as if Emily was insisting on this for the sake of decorum alone.
“In that case,” she sighed, a little amused and annoyed. “Dr. Clarke, this is Paul Smith, Miss Garcia’s paramour and father of the child in question. Paul, this is Dr. Clarke, who’s been seeing and corresponding with Miss Garcia as her physician.”
Clearly, this was all Jo intended to say. After all their letters, after all their time together, after a day spent with Emily’s own family as if she were part of it.
That feeling of wholeness Emily had felt at the station was crushed by this reality like the cigarette under Jo’s very real, very solid, very earthy-dynamic-sapphic-mysterious-right-in-the-thick-of-life-itself boot.
Jo was not some magical missing piece of Emily’s family. And Emily was not destined to be part of Jo’s. If Jo were thinking that way, she wouldn’t have placed herself solidly outside the connection between Emily and Mr. Smith. Jo obviously had no inclination to bring Emily into her own little fold. This husband. This woman. This baby. These friends like Noah and Miss Withers and the rest who were so much more like her, who lived just as intensely as she did.
While Emily was just...well, she was Dr. Clarke, as Jo had introduced her to this important person in her life. She was a failing physician from “Farm-Brush” who minded her duties and lived with her father. And no glass of punch, rebound dime novel, or even scandalous postcard could really change that. That Emily had even invited a person like this to attend a lecture and service with her familytomorrow, like they were something beyond a bit of novelty, suddenly seemed so absurd she wanted to cry in embarrassment.
“Oh dear,” she heard Mr. Smith say out of the corner of his mouth to Jo. “I’ve shocked her. I’m sorry, I am trying my very best not to be shocking...”
Jo’s hand on Emily’s shoulder made her jump. “Dr. Clarke? Is everything alright?”
Dr. Clarkeagain. The second they left the fantasy world and came into the reality of Jo’s day-to-day, she was Dr. Clarke. That it was so technically polite for her to use that name in the presence of people she would never be friendly with made it all the more painful.
But heavens, there was no time to dwell in this. She was, apparently, here to minister to a patient. Nothing more or less than that. So, she straightened her spine and grasped her bag.
“No problem, Mrs. Smith.” She caught the way Jo’s eyes narrowed when the honorific slipped out. She chose to look away from that, toward Miss Garcia—her patient, the one person in this room she knew how to deal with right now—and said, “Let’s get started, then, shall we?”