Chapter Twenty-Three
Emily
It was another week or so of letters before Emily saw Jo again, though this time, there were presents involved, as Christmas drew nearer and Jo cleared various possessions from her home and shop.
She sent a few more rebound dime romances, artfully swathed as if they’d been penned by none other than Mary Wollstonecraft, along with a famous horror story that was not rebound but had genuinely been written by that great thinker’s own daughter. She also promised that there was still one lingering volume that was not ready yet.
Emily would just have to check back in for it later. Nothing for it.
As for Emily, she sent the first piece of the chess set she’d designed especially for Jo. Unable to bear parting the two coordinating queens on her desk to complete that set, she’d created a new one in which the bases looked like cubes of type whose letters coordinated with their names. It was a new and blocky style, and she was conveniently slower at making them.
Jo would simply have to stick around long enough to receive the complete set piece by piece.
With those lingering, unfinished promises, they had no choice but to plan for the time they’d spend together during the last months of Vanessa’s confinement.
Emily knew that Jo hated to leave her work behind, hard-won as it was. Idleness and dependency weren’t her way. So Emily asked around at the local papers and print houses until she’d secured Jo and Smithy some regular work setting newspaper composites for the Godalming Times that would last the length of their stay. Meanwhile, Vanessa would help tend to the animals and learn from Jo, Emily, and Betsy some of the life-things like soup-making and child-tending that actresses weren’t expected to know, but that working-class parents needed at least a basic understanding of. When she returned to London, it would be well-rested and prepared for whatever came next.
It was all arranged fairly well, actually.
Except for the fact that Emily hadn’t told Papa yet.
She’d told him friends were coming to stay, since Betsy insisted she could not prepare for arrival without it impacting the household accounts enough for Papa to notice. So, he had to be told that Emily’s friends from London—including whom he called “that delightful Miss Jo”—would be riding out the end of winter here.
What she hadn’t told him yet was that a baby was set to be born within these walls and under the care of this odd, broken family and all of its ghosts.
She considered pretending that Vanessa planned to leave before the birth itself and acting surprised when it came “early.” But Betsy didn’t like that one, either.
“What you’re doing for this woman is an act of charity and generosity that will reflect beautifully on this entire household for years to come,” Betsy said. “Don’t you even think of hiding your light, Miss Emily. You tell him what you’re doing, and if he complains about having a daughter so inclined to goodness, you tell him to take those complaints and...” She broke off, blushing like she’d been about to make a rather rude suggestion indeed. “Tell him to, er...take them to the chaplain. That’s right. See what he has to say on the matter.”
With that rather scolding encouragement echoing in her head, she...well, unfortunately she proceeded to just let the words go on echoing while she put the conversation off even further, avoiding every opportunity until the very day the company was set to arrive.
There was a quiet knock on her study door as she rocked in her chair, working on a rook perched securely upon its letter R for Jo’s chess set.
“Yes?” she called, certain she knew whom it was and knowing she could put it off no longer. “Come in, Papa.”
He opened the door and stepped tentatively inside, his eyes flicking around the room as they always did on the rare occasion he came into this place, like he couldn’t quite believe it was no longer the sewing room it had been for so long.
“Your friends are set to arrive soon, aren’t they?” he asked. “Are you ready for them?”
“Oh yes,” said Emily, still rocking and carving. “But I’m not planning to sit around waiting, what with the train always being so late coming in from London. They’ll arrive when they arrive. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy this bit of quiet while it lasts.”
Papa smiled. “Wise of you. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
“Papa, wait.”
He turned back as Emily let her carving things fall into the nest her apron made across her lap.
“You need to know something,” she went on, “about this visit.”
Much to her surprise, Papa smiled widely. “Oh, my dear. I do know that you and Miss Jo are a very special sort of companions, and you should know by now that I would never stand in the way of love in any form. She is as welcome in this house as David is, and our family will be all the better for her presence in our lives.”
Well, that was so sugary sweet and unlike her father that she felt dreadful following it up with the real news she had to give.
“That’s very lovely, Papa, and I thank you for that sentiment. Really.” She cleared her throat and picked at a woodshaving. “But you ought to know that while she’s partly coming to grace us with that presence, she is also coming to accompany Miss Garcia, our other friend, who required a comfortable place to wait out the end of her maternal confinement, and a safe place and skilled attendant to see her through the child’s delivery.”
To his credit, the panic that crossed her father’s face was kept very quiet and very close. He waited the span of a few calming breaths before responding in a voice that was almost convincingly practical.
“I thought you were concerned about being trapped in that specialty. While you could possibly obscure the details from London, once the village hears you’ve brought a patient like this into your home...”
“You’re not wrong,” Emily said, rocking and staring at the beautiful rows of brown, black, white, and tan chess pieces that lined her shelves, the useless, decadent items of beauty and leisure that she created and surrounded herself with in the quiet hours. “That was my fear. But I don’t fear it anymore.”
“You’ve accepted the inevitability?”
“Not exactly.” She met his eye, and for once, was able to keep her face and voice soft. She’d been thinking on this for weeks, now. What it meant for her to have done this. What paths it might force. Or cut her off from. But how little that mattered, in the end. “I don’t think the success or failure of my life will be measured by the perfect, sensible line of my career path, any more than it might have been defined by a husband. My life is my own to live. To support us, I’ll do the work that makes sense for me. For the moment, it makes sense to help Miss Garcia. Perhaps after, it will make sense to take on a few more patients like her. Or not. Perhaps it will make more sense to demand that the hospital start paying me properly if it wants me to act as both doctor and nurse for such long, trying hours. Maybe I’ll learn something new. Something ridiculous. Like printing.” She smiled to herself. “I hear that having a loving companion teach you printing can lead to a very interesting life indeed.”
Papa had not recovered from his stunned silence until the bell rang from the front door, and Betsy’s shuffle started toward the entryway below them.
Emily put her carving things on her desk, right at the feet of the two swirling queens, who stood surrounded by dried flowers and stacks of letters atop the stately stage of Shelley’s Frankenstein, an artifact she liked very much even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to read it. She adjusted the queens slightly, then went over to kiss her father’s cheek and squeezed one of his hands, hoping they were not in any pain today.
“I don’t know what comes next, exactly,” she admitted. “But I know I am surrounded by you, and Miss Jo, and Noah and David, and so many people who I would do anything for, and who would do much for me. Whatever the next phase brings will work out well enough, under circumstances like that.”
And Papa, for all he still looked nervous about the prospect, squeezed her hand back, smiled, and expressed that he’d like to hear more about these insights over coffee tonight.
“With Jo along to share her own thoughts on the matter, I hope,” he added. “She strikes me as a very interesting person, with many interesting ideas, if you can get her talking. Or writing. She seems to have an awful lot to say in that particular format.”
She followed Papa out into the hall. She hesitated on the threshold, realizing she’d forgotten to sweep. But the dust and ghosts would keep, she supposed. She had a long-awaited guest to greet first. A living one. But before she could go downstairs to see if she could help anyone with their luggage, she heard boots on the staircase, and watched as a dark-haired head appeared over the railing.
Jo all but stumbled to a stop when she got to the upstairs landing, grinning in a windswept sort of way as she spotted Emily. Papa got himself out of the way and down the stairs quickly, as Jo came and crushed Emily up into the sort of chilly, sooty embrace that came after a morning’s travel.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, stepping back and holding out a fresh handful of dried flowers wrapped in ribbon, lavender this time. They would be a beautiful addition to the queenly décor on Emily’s desk. “I couldn’t wait. Your housekeeper told me where to find you.”
“She’s always been a very helpful woman,” said Emily as she accepted another embrace. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
“Really?” Emily teased. “Glad to be stuck in Farm-Brush for months at a time with some drab old spinster and her guinea pigs?”
“Well, when you put it that way...” Jo made a face for a moment, then grabbed Emily by the hand, pulled her in like they were about to start the most unlikely of dances right there in the upstairs hallway. After a quick and pleasantly unnecessary glance to make sure there was no one looking on from the staircase, she kissed Emily full and smiling on the mouth. “Yes. Yes, Emily, I am bloody thrilled to be here.”