Mrs Goddard took a sip of her cordial. ‘Of course, they believed that dancing led to other things, and it was the other things that really worried them. Dancing in itself might have been all right as far as the more liberal missionaries were concerned – as long as you didn’t dance too close, but when dancing really got going, then, well, you know the consequences of that.’

She looked at Emma. ‘We get the occasional American missionary coming to the door. They’re usually very polite young men from Utah and they wear peculiar underpants. Did you know that, Emma? Those very courteous and well-behaved young men wear unusual underpants called temple garments. I’ve never seen them, of course, because those young men are quite unlike our own youths who wear their underpants half outside their trousers. You’ll have noticed that – who could miss it? – those young men with their underpants showing. They aren’t even builders. Builders are entitled to wear visible underpants; it goes with the job. Perhaps that’s the great service the American missionaries could do us. Rather than converting us to anything, they could get our young men to tuck their underpants back inside, where they should be. That would be a great achievement and we’d all be so grateful to them for doing it.’

Harriet came into the room. She smiled at Emma. ‘I’m so glad you two have met,’ she said.

‘So am I,’ said Mrs Goddard. And then, to Emma, ‘You must come and have supper with us some day. I’ll make a special cake.’

Emma noticed that this invitation caused Harriet to give Mrs Goddard what appeared to be a warning look.

‘Emma is very busy,’ said Harriet. ‘She has a lot to do, Mrs God.’

‘Oh well, some day,’ said Mrs Goddard. ‘Now you two should go off and enjoy yourselves.’

In the car on the way out of the disused airfield, Emma remarked to Harriet that she very much liked Mrs Goddard. ‘She’s not at all as I imagined her,’ she said. ‘To be called Mrs Goddard and to have an English Language school conjures up a very different image.’ She paused. ‘And I heard you call her Mrs God.’

‘That’s short for Goddard,’ said Harriet.

‘I see.’ Emma bit her lip. ‘It’s just that it sounds a bit odd. I read somewhere or other about a man who heard a massive peel of thunder above him and said – he was a bit camp – “Oh, there goes Miss God up to her tricks again!” And just as he said it, there was a massive bolt of lightning and he was struck down dead.’

‘What a terrible thing,’ said Harriet. ‘But I’m not being in any way disrespectful. I’d never laugh at God.’

‘No,’ said Emma. ‘Why risk it?’

‘She’s very kind,’ said Harriet. ‘She was my mother’s best friend. She’s the only friend of my parents I know.’

‘That’s sad,’ said Emma.

‘Yes, maybe. But she makes up for it.’

‘And Mr Goddard?’ asked Emma.

‘I never met him,’ replied Harriet. ‘I wish I had. All she ever said to me about him was “I gave my husband his freedom.” That’s what she said.’

Emma was intrigued. ‘I wonder what that means.’

‘I asked,’ said Harriet. ‘And all she replied was “Existential freedom”. I didn’t understand, I’m afraid.’

Emma referred to the invitation to supper. ‘You seemed worried about that. Do you mind my asking why?’

Harriet hesitated before answering. ‘It’s the cake,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t think she should go round offering her cake to people. I’ve told her that before.’

They had reached the end of the airfield road and Emma turned the Mini Cooper on to the main road back to Highbury. ‘What’s wrong with her cake?’

Harriet looked out of the window. ‘She puts something in it,’ she muttered.

‘Oh,’ said Emma.

When visitors came to Hartfield, Mr Woodhouse would usually entertain them in his library – a large, untidy room on the north side of the house – while Emma would see her guests either in the kitchen or in the small sitting room she had taken over when she had left university. This room had been her mother’s, and had been kept almost as a shrine to the late Mrs Woodhouse, as people do when they cannot find the heart to change a room that had been used by somebody who has grown up and gone away, or died. Emma and Isabella had understood this, and as children had rarely entered the room that to them was one of the few reminders that they had of their mother. Now, however, Emma had begun to use it, and had slowly begun to stamp her own personality on the room. The shelves were beginning to fill with her books; the small writing desk by the window had started to be covered with her laptop and papers – such as they were. A sketchbook lay opened on the sofa table.

‘I didn’t know you drew,’ exclaimed Harriet. ‘May I take a look?’

Emma put down the teapot and made a careless gesture of dismissal. ‘I’m hopeless,’ she said. ‘I wish I could draw better.’

Harriet repeated her question. ‘May I look?’

‘Of course. But, as I say, I’m useless.’

Harriet turned the pages of the sketchbook with almost reverential care. ‘They’re very good,’ she said. ‘You’re not useless at all. They’re fantastic.’

Emma came to Harriet’s side and looked over her shoulder. ‘I went to drawing classes in Bath,’ she said. ‘For about two years. They encouraged us if we were doing the design course. I suppose you need to be able to sketch out your design ideas and it helps if you can draw.’

‘Which you obviously can,’ said Harriet, gazing in admiration at a watercolour still life in which ink had been used for emphasis. ‘I like that combination of watercolour and ink. It’s very delicate.’

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘Ink by itself is really hard. You can’t shade with it. But it goes well with watercolours.’

Harriet turned a page. ‘Who’s he?’ she asked, pointing to a pencil sketch of a young man seated in a kitchen.

‘That’s Mark,’ said Emma. ‘He was my friend’s boyfriend.’

‘He looks nice,’ said Harriet. ‘He’s got big eyes. I like people with big eyes.’

Emma smiled. ‘What big eyes you’ve got, Grandma.’

‘What?’

‘I was just thinking about Little Red Riding Hood,’ said Emma. ‘You know how the wolf’s dressed in Grandma’s clothes and Little Red Riding Hood sees his great sharp teeth … All the better to eat you with, my dear!’

Harriet gave a shiver. ‘Don’t!’ she said. ‘I get scared really easily, Emma.’

‘All right,’ said Emma. ‘No nursery rhymes. Most of them are pretty scary, aren’t they? They’re all about cruelty. Miss Taylor used to read to us from a book called Struwwelpeter. Did you ever come across it?’

Harriet put down the sketchbook and took her cup of tea from Emma. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘If you think that Little Red Riding Hood was scary, you should look at Struwwelpeter. There’s the story of a little boy who sucked his thumb and had it chopped off by the Suck-a-Thumb Man. He had a large pair of tailor’s scissors and he cut off children’s thumbs. The picture showed the blood.’

Harriet shuddered. ‘I’m glad I never read that.’

‘In fact,’ Emma continued, keeping her gaze on Harriet, ‘I read somewhere that the story of the Suck-a-Thumb Man is really all about castration. Little boys understand that, even though it’s never spelled out to them; little girls don’t. They think it’s about thumbs.’

Harriet shuddered again. ‘Oh,’ she said.

They sat down with their tea. Emma looked at Harriet across the rim of her cup. Botticelli, she thought. She’s exactly like one of those women in his Spring painting. Or is she Venus herself, floating on her shell? She would draw Harriet. She had to.

Harriet had said something that Emma did not catch because she was thinking about Botticelli. ‘What?’

‘I was wondering about when you were going to start your practice? Remember? You told me that you were going to do design or decoration, or whatever you call it.’

‘In the autumn,’ said Emma. ‘I’m working on a website. I’m going to get those sample books – fabrics and wallpapers and so on. There’s quite a lot to do.’

‘You’re so brave,’ said Harriet. ‘Starting your own business is really brave.’

Emma shrugged. ‘There’s not much risk for me,’ she said.

‘I’m lucky. I’ve got somewhere to live and Pops pays the bills.’

‘That’s really lucky,’ said Harriet.

Emma was studying her friend. Had it occurred to her, she wondered, that she might find herself in a similar position?

‘It’s quite hard for us these days,’ she said. ‘We have to—’

Harriet interrupted her. ‘We?’

‘Us girls. Women. We have to work. Guys have always had to do that, I suppose, but now it applies to us too. Unless one’s, well, unless one’s lucky.’

‘You mean unless you get married?’

Emma shook her head. ‘Oh, it’s not that simple. Most women have to run the house, look after the kids, and work.’

‘I know,’ said Harriet. ‘It’s really unfair.’

Emma laughed. ‘Fairness doesn’t come into it, Harriet. The world has never been fair. It wasn’t fair when women couldn’t work, back in the old days. Then you had to get married or you were done for. You ended up being a domestic worker of some sort – a kitchen maid or something like that. If you came from a middle-class background you could be a governess or a lady’s companion perhaps. It was harsh.’ She thought of Miss Taylor. She had never asked her why she had become a governess; it had always struck her as simply being Miss Taylor’s destiny, in the way in which so many people just seem destined to do what they do or to be what they are. She was destined to be Emma; her father was destined to be Pops – poor, worrying, generous Pops; Sid was destined to be Sid, with his rotavator and his trailer that he used to cart firewood and manure about the place.

‘Well, it’s better now,’ said Harriet. ‘We have choices.’

Emma looked doubtful. ‘Have we? Such as?’

‘We can do the jobs we want to do. We can qualify to do various things. We can have a career.’

Emma conceded grudgingly. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘That may be true – to an extent. But there’s one choice you’ve left out.’

Harriet waited for her.

‘You’ve left out the possibility of leaving it all up to men.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Emma looked out of the window. The thought had occurred to her that she should not interfere, but it was only a passing notion, and was discarded. ‘I mean that one can let men pay the bills.’ She paused. Harriet was listening. ‘You can still find men who are prepared to look after women. There are still a few women who don’t have to work.’

‘They stay at home? Men do the work?’

Emma shrugged. ‘That’s a simple way of putting it. You could say that it’s an exchange. Men might have the money. Women exchange their … their friendship for practical support. They look after the men emotionally. They cook for them and so on. In return, men worry about the bills. Don’t you think that sounds like a fair exchange?’

Harriet did not require much time to think. ‘I do,’ she said.

‘It’s not as if you’re committed to the man forever,’ said Emma. ‘Men can be a temporary fix.’ She smiled, and noticed that Harriet smiled too. ‘They don’t mind, of course. Everybody knows where they stand.’

She was suddenly aware that she had lost Harriet’s attention. The other young woman was looking out of the window.

Emma followed her gaze. A woman in blue dungarees was digging in a flowerbed. ‘That’s Mrs Sid,’ said Emma. ‘She’s the one who does the garden for us. She’s really good with flowers – she knows all the botanical names. I can’t remember them. They go in one ear and out the other.’

‘She looks strong,’ said Harriet.

‘She is. She’s very nice too. She’s married to Sid. He’s a sweetie; he works on the farm.’

Harriet watched as the gardener tossed weeds into a trug. ‘What’s her name?’ she asked.

Emma frowned. ‘I’m not sure. I suppose she’s got one. We just call her Mrs Sid because she’s married to Sid. She doesn’t mind. We’ve always called her that.’ She paused. ‘Mrs Firhill’s called Betty. I know that. Betty Firhill – not that I’d ever dream of such familiarity. She’d faint if I called her Betty – and so would I. Both of us would be out stone cold.’

Harriet had noticed something else. ‘There’s somebody coming up the drive. There’s a car.’

Emma affected surprise. ‘Is there? Oh, that’s Philip Elton’s car. It’s a BMW Something-something. I don’t know exactly what, but it’s very expensive.’

Harriet smiled. ‘But I thought he was the vicar.’