The Passions of Emma by Penelope Williamson Page A

waiting for a man dead nearly thirty years. And her sister, who came week after week, year after year, to the house of a love who had married another woman. And Emma’s own poor mama, abandoned by that same man, starving and strangling herself with whalebone, and behaving as if she would see him that very night across the supper table.
    But it was against every rule in their world that they should even hint at what was truly in their thoughts and in their hearts. Emma wondered what would happen if for once someone spoke the unspeakable.
    “A bobbin boy was killed in the mill last week,” Emma said.
    Her words fell into the room like stones down a dry well, clattering and echoing into nothingness.
    Then Miss Liluth sighed loudly and rattled her teacup in its saucer. “Oh, dear.”
    Her sister sniffed so hard her nose quivered. “They say that Irish woman brought him to the last hunt of the season, of all places. It’s unsettling to think of.”
    “Like the weather,” Emma said.
    Miss Liluth plucked at the lace jabot around her throat. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear.”
    This time her sister was the one to pat her arm. “Now, now, Liluth, don’t upset yourself. I was saying as much just this morning,wasn’t I? That the middling and lower orders can no longer be depended upon to know their place.”
    Bethel clucked her tongue, shaking her head. “Society is disintegrating before our very eyes.”
    “‘Disintegrating.’ What a clever turn of phrase, Mama.” Emma could hear the rising hysteria in her voice, but she couldn’t seem to stop it. “The child had his scalp and one of his arms torn off. He bled to death.”
    The face Bethel turned to her daughter was empty, but a frown darkened her deep blue eyes. “To be sure, dear. But one doesn’t speak of unpleasant things over tea.”
    Bethel then turned a smiling face to their guests and said, “Now you all must surely have heard the latest news. Young Stuart Alcott has at last come slinking home, impoverished no doubt, and most certainly in disgrace.”
    Maddie’s gaze jerked over to Emma and then away again, and two bright spots of color blossomed on her cheeks. Her hand shook so hard the cup rattled in its saucer, and tea slopped onto the lap rug that lay across her legs.
    Bethel reached for the silver bell on the tea cart just as more callers arrived. A trio of Great Folk matrons, who exclaimed over the beautiful sapphire engagement ring on Emma’s finger and pretended not to notice Maddie’s white face and trembling hands. They spoke no more of dead bobbin boys and scapegrace young men, but of the weather and a wedding that was two whole years in the future.
    Their callers all left promptly at five o’clock, as was the rule. A heavy silence settled over the drawing room, and Emma thought she could almost see her mother’s anger, like a stain on the air. She knew she would pay dearly now for discussing unpleasant things over tea.
    But it was Maddie on whom their mother bent her fury.
    “You are a disgrace, Madeleine Tremayne,” Bethel said, her drawl soft and yet somehow cutting deep. And though she was a small woman, she seemed to tower over the wheelchair, so that with each word Maddie shriveled deeper and deeper into the cane seat. “Hereour friends come to see our Emma, and you make a spectacle of yourself—worse than a dime-show freak, you are. Since you can’t seem to manage yourself in polite company, I can no longer allow you to be there.”
    “They are my betrothal calls, Mama,” Emma said, and although she tried, she couldn’t keep the shaking out of her voice. “I want Maddie with me.”
    “It won’t do, Emma. She makes herself conspicuous, sitting there in that . . . that obscene contraption, unable to partake properly of the refreshments, spilling her tea. Her very presence makes our guests uncomfortable. It will not do.”
    “But, Mama—”
    Her mother gripped Emma’s chin hard with her fingers, turning her head to the light of the