Page 106 of The Summer Country

“Less so than Weston-super-Mare.” Taking pity, she said, “You needn’t worry. I’ve no intention of plunging into the surf. It is cooler here, isn’t it?” A wind from the sea seemed intent on disengaging her hair from its pins.

“We’re on the windward side of the island,” said George apologetically. “If you don’t like it, we could—”

“No, it’s fine.” The last thing Emily wanted was to prolong the outing. All she wanted was to go back to Beckles and—what? Adam knew as little as she. Whatever Mrs. Davenant knew, she wasn’t telling.

For a mad moment, Emily wondered if Mrs. Davenant might have borne her grandfather a child. They did say that hate was first cousin to love—or some sort of relation, at any event. There were all those questions Mrs. Davenant had asked Adam about her mother and when her mother was born, the interest Mrs. Davenant showed in Emily . . .

But Mrs. Davenant had been married. If she’d borne a child, she’d have had no need to smuggle it out to St. Andrew. She would simply claim it as her husband’s.

One assumed?

Emily used to feel quite comfortable assuming. But here, everything she thought she’d known had turned on its head, not once, but again and again. All of the assumptions that seemed sturdy as masonry one moment were revealed as hollow reeds the next.

What had her grandfather been doing sending her here? That he had sent her, that he had intended this, she had no doubt. Why leave her Peverills, else? He must have known that, once in Barbados, she would see the discrepancy in the dates and realize that her mother couldn’t be the child of her grandparents’ marriage.

But then who was she? And why hadn’t her grandfather simply told her? Emily felt a surge of rage and grief, for her difficult, domineering, puckish grandfather who liked to make everyone dance to his tune. She’d never minded it before, but that was most likely because they’d always played in harmony; he’d given her her head, encouraging her in hobbies her aunt found unladylike, egging her on at her most outspoken, most forthright. Adam might complain about her grandfather controlling him by pulling on the purse strings, but he’d never, ever tried to bend Emily to his will.

Well, with the one exception. When he wanted her to marry Adam. But he hadn’t pressed her. When she’d demurred, he’d shrugged and accepted it, even if the light in his eye had told her he hadn’t given up the fight just yet. But it had become almost a joke over time. Or, at least, it had suited Emily to treat it as a joke. She wondered, now, uneasily, if her grandfather had felt the same. And what else he had kept from her.

He needs you, he’d told Emily, of Adam. The boy’s a flibbertigibbet. He needs someone to keep him in line.

I’ve no desire to be my cousin’s keeper, she’d told him, and he’d flicked her nose and told her not to be pert. I only want to see you settled.

Everyone wanted to see her settled, it seemed. Mrs. Davenant, because she came with Peverills. Her grandfather—because he loved her? Or because he knew something about her past and felt the need to see her truly and legitimately a member of the Fenty family?

But her legitimacy wouldn’t be in doubt if he hadn’t sent her here. If he hadn’t left her Peverills. If she’d stayed in Bristol, she might have been what she was, Jonathan and Winifred Fenty’s granddaughter, the child of that daughter, you know, the one who ran off with an impoverished minister and wrote all those tedious tracts about the rights of man and injustice of slavery and goodness only knows what else.

There had to be other people in Barbados who had known her grandparents. The danger was, if she asked too many questions, she might start other people asking them too.

Did she mind? Not for the sake of the Mrs. Davenants of the world. But she would mind Adam looking at her differently, as somehow less, less a cousin, less a member of the family.

“Are you cold?”

“What? No. I rather like it.” Emily dragged herself back to the present with an effort. Jonah had set out a rug on the scrub, weighting it down with porcelain and crystal and enough food to feed half of St. Andrew.

“Would you prefer chicken or ham?”

Looking at the piles of cold chicken and plates of dainties, Emily thought of that exhausted woman working her small field of arrowroot, her children barefoot and bony. “It seems rather obscene to have all this when the people in St. Andrew have so little.”

“It’s the way of the world,” said George, helping himself to a slice of ham. “Was it so different in Bristol?”

“No,” Emily had to admit. The gulf between Aunt Millicent’s table and her father’s parish had been hard to stomach. But there, at least, she had felt secure in her ability to do some good. Here, she felt at a loss, lost between worlds, neither Redleg nor planter, neither native nor foreigner.

Above them, the crags stretched high overheard, harsh and hilly. It seemed impossible that there were people living up there, on those cliffs, that her grandfather had been born there, eking out a living until he was able to snatch his opportunity and make his escape.

“It is majestic, isn’t it?” said George, entirely misunderstanding what she was thinking. He toyed with the fringe of the rug. “I’m glad to have a chance to speak to you. I suppose you realize my grandmother would like to see us make a match of it?”

“I gathered as much. She hasn’t precisely been subtle.” Why did he have to broach this now? Emily forced herself to focus on George, although the cliffs lurked above her, taunting her with secrets. “You needn’t mind it. I don’t.”

“I don’t mind it either.” George attempted to muster a smile, but it came out wobbly. He tried again. “What I mean is, I wouldn’t mind it. Would it be so dreadful, to be married?”

Oh no. Not now. Not here. Emily stared at him, trying, very hard, not to sound as irritated as she felt. “I think that would depend on the person, don’t you?” she said, with false brightness.

George failed to take the hint. “I do like you, Emily. Quite a lot. I think we might rub on well together.”

“You do, or your grandmother does?” said Emily, and then wished she hadn’t.

“I do,” said George, not entirely convincingly. “Truly. I’ve enjoyed our rides together. We do get along, don’t we?”