Page 125 of The Summer Country

Nathaniel looked at her with concern. “Can I give you something to help you sleep?”

“No! No, thank you. I don’t—I don’t like to blur my wits.” The helplessness of it terrified her, the idea of lying there in a stupor as death flew over the rooftops.

Nathaniel looked for a moment as though he might argue, but said only, “If you need me, I’ll leave my door open. Don’t worry about waking me.”

The house had a curious emptiness to it as Emily walked down the hall to the room she had claimed as her own. Everything looked strange and unfamiliar, the bed with its netting tucked to the sides, the brush and combs on the dresser. She had lived here for seven days now, but it felt as though she had never been here at all. The silence pressed around her, unnatural silence, and Emily clutched her knees to her chest in the great bed and lowered her cheek to her knee and allowed herself to imagine that it had all been a dream, that Adam was still there in the next room, stirring restlessly against the pillow, about to demand why she was feeding him invalid food when what he wanted was meat.

But the bed in the next room was empty.

She was alone in the house with Nathaniel. The thought struck her like a blow. She couldn’t stay here. It had been bad enough with only a sick male cousin for chaperone, but now—she would have to go back to Beckles. Her entire being recoiled at the thought of going back to Laura and confessing how she’d failed.

Emily woke twice in the night and found herself by Adam’s bedside before she realized where she was. The bed was empty, the sheets stripped, all trace of Adam gone.

The second time, she saw a figure silhouetted in a doorway and knew Nathaniel was there, watching over her.

“I’m all right,” she said to the shadows, and shut the bedroom door.

He was gone when she woke in the morning, after a restless sleep haunted with dreams. There was a note left in the drawing room, informing her that he would be at the hospital, but would be back by early afternoon.

Of Adam, there was no sign, and it struck Emily like a knife in the chest that Adam had been carted away to be buried alone, with no one to mourn him, no service, no words beside the grave, no widow in black. Nathaniel would have done it properly, she knew. Between his conscientiousness and Mr. Turner’s influence, a coffin would have been secured, no matter how scarce coffins might be. There would be a place in a graveyard for Adam, a shallow one, perhaps, but still a grave.

This wasn’t where his bones were meant to be. He was meant to be buried in Bristol, by the hideous memorial of a weeping angel that marked their grandfather’s grave. He was meant to grow old and sport ludicrous whiskers and develop a paunch and a taste for tartan waistcoats and tease his children with stories of his youth. Not this, bleached bones in a mass grave on an island far, far away.

Emily took up pen and paper, but she couldn’t write.

Dearest Laura . . .

She tried again.

My dear Aunt Millicent . . .

She couldn’t do it. Part of her, the cowardly part, said it would be kinder so. Kinder to let them believe Adam was alive a little longer, his red hair shining under a tropical sun, grinning that rogue’s grin, scheming and plotting for the greater glory of the House of Fenty.

He had so wanted to make a success of this trip.

Emily flung the pen aside. Good, vigorous, mindless physical exercise, that was what she needed. There was nothing left in the house to scrub. She would go for a walk. Walking always cleared her mind.

It felt strange to struggle into a walking dress, to tie the ribbon of a bonnet. She had worn nothing for days but the oversized gown she had borrowed from Mr. Turner’s housekeeper. Mrs. Turner’s gowns were too fine for her, but she had no other choice. Her own dress, the dress in which she had come into Bridgetown over a week ago, had long since been burned.

Her shoes, at least, were her own.

Emily squinted, her eyes dazzled by the light as she let herself out the door she had entered eight days before. How long had it been since she had last been farther than the yard? Emily lifted a hand to shade her eyes, thought of going back for a parasol, and decided better of it. Adam might twit her about burning brown, but . . .

No. Adam wouldn’t twit her about her complexion. Ever again.

Emily bit down hard on her lip and plowed forward, not caring where she was going, so long as it was away. Her borrowed bodice was damp with sweat, her hair sticking in curls to the back of her neck where it had escaped the knot in which she’d bound it. One foot, then another. One foot, then another.

He had been getting better. He had. What had she been thinking, having sherry in the parlor with Nathaniel? If she’d been by his side . . . might she have done something? Called for help? Or would death have come all the same? What had she missed? What symptom, what sign? It takes them that way, Nathaniel had said, but it was easy for him to say, it wasn’t his family, his cousin. She knew she was being unfair, but she didn’t care.

Why hadn’t she taken more care? If she had sponged his head again . . . If she hadn’t fed him soup that morning . . . Maybe the act of digestion had overtaxed his system? If she had given him a larger dose of laudanum . . . If, if, if, a thousand ifs. If they had never come to Barbados, if she had never heard of Peverills, if their grandfather had left well enough alone, if Uncle Archie had come to Barbados instead of Adam, and always, always, at the end of it, if she had been more vigilant, more careful, more competent. All those years ago, she had been too young to nurse her mother properly, but she had worked and worked and learned and learned, and had thought, now, at last, she might change the ending. She would bring Adam triumphantly home, weak but on the mend.

But she hadn’t.

She had failed Adam. She had failed Laura. She had failed everyone.

A cart rattled past, piled high with empty coffins. That was all. Coffin upon coffin, some cobbled together so carelessly that Emily could see the spaces between the slats, the nails only half-hammered. Her steps slowed as she began to be aware of her surroundings, to realize how eerie was the stillness of the street. There were no vendors, no cries to buy this or that, to patronize this icehouse or that haberdashery. The shops on Swan Street and Roebuck were still and shuttered. The statue of Nelson in Trafalgar Square stood sanctuary over a desolate and abandoned landscape.

A dog prowled past, dragging something in his mouth. Emily jumped back, almost tripping over the hem of Mrs. Turner’s dress as she saw fingers trailing behind. It was an arm, a human arm.