As she left Miss Bates and made her way back down the garden path, Emma noticed that there was a familiar Land Rover parked immediately behind her Mini Cooper. The figure in the driving seat was equally familiar. It was George.

She stopped in her tracks. She was still smarting with shame over what he had said to her the previous evening, and had remembered every word of his criticism. She felt disinclined to face her accuser just yet, but she could hardly turn and go back into the cottage. Nor could she simply get into her car and pretend that she had not seen him.

She decided to continue towards her car and see what he did. It was possible that he was parked in the street for some reason other than to confront her – the post office was not far away – and if he was, then she could simply wave to him and drive off. But, as she approached the car, the door of the Land Rover opened and George stepped out.

‘Emma,’ he called. ‘May I have a word with you?’

She nodded.

‘I was in the shop in Holt,’ he said. ‘I was speaking to Mrs Edwards, and she said that you had been in and bought up their entire supply of violet creams.’

Emma shrugged. ‘So?’

‘I know why you did that,’ he said. ‘I’m right in thinking they were for Miss Bates?’

‘Maybe.’ She wanted to say, What’s it got to do with you?

‘Then I want you to know how much I admire that. It’s a kind thing you’ve just done.’

He looked at her expectantly, but she did not know what to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve interfered, but I must say how proud I am of you.’

She frowned. How can he be proud of me? she wondered. What am I to him?

He answered the question she had not openly asked. ‘I feel entitled to be proud of you because I count you as one of my closest friends. We go back quite a long time, Emma, and that means something to me. I don’t know if you know that, but it does.’

She was uncertain what to say. A few days ago she might have made some witty remark about going back with people – reactionary friendships? – but this was not the moment for that sort of clever levity. Now she felt something quite different: a fondness for her old friend, which was combined with something altogether new – a sense of George as a person with an existence that was quite independent of hers. And this made her realise that if she were to be written out of this world today, it would still go on with its essential concerns and objectives; she was nothing really. She had no job; she had nobody who depended on her; she did little to make the world easier for those she knew, other than, perhaps, to hand out boxes of violet creams.

George was going back to his Land Rover. Over his shoulder he said, ‘Don’t fight it, Emma.’

She opened the door of the Mini Cooper and had already started the engine when she thought of his words. Don’t fight it. What precisely was it? Her better nature? Did she have one?

Her route home from the village took her past the turning for Randalls, and it was there, at the intersection of the two lanes, that she saw Jane Fairfax walking across a field at the edge the road. Emma saw Jane before Jane saw her; she stopped the car and waited until Jane climbed over a rickety old stile at the field’s edge. She called out, and Jane looked up in surprise.

‘Are you going back to the village?’ Emma shouted through her car window.

Jane looked momentarily confused. Then, smoothing her hair, which had been ruffled by the breeze, she came over to speak to Emma. ‘Yes, I am. I’ve just been …’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve just been for a walk. Over there.’ She pointed vaguely behind her.

‘A nice day for it,’ said Emma.

‘It looks as if it’s going to rain, though,’ said Jane. She spoke rather formally, as if she were keeping her distance from Emma.

Emma noticed it. ‘Please let me give you a lift into the village.’

Jane shook her head. ‘You’re going in the opposite direction.’ Then she added, almost grudgingly, ‘Thank you, anyway.’

‘But you said it’s going to rain,’ said Emma.

‘I’ll be all right.’

‘I can’t leave you to get soaked.’

‘I said: I’ll be all right.’

Emma would not give up. ‘Come on. I don’t mind going back. I’ve got nothing to do. Please.’

Jane sighed, and silently crossed to the other side of the car. Emma leaned over and opened the door for her. ‘There’s not much room, I’m afraid. You can move the seat back.’

Jane said nothing, but strapped herself in. Emma switched off the engine; she had pulled in off the road and she could move if anything came. ‘I need to say something to you,’ she began. ‘I’ve just been to see your aunt. I went there to apologise.’

Jane looked straight ahead.

‘I know what you probably feel about it,’ Emma continued. ‘It was stupid of me – and really unkind. I don’t know why I said it.’ She paused. Perhaps Miss Bates had not told her niece about the incident; not everybody had heard what had happened. But if she had not, then why was Jane’s manner so hostile? She decided that must have told her.

‘I’ve obviously offended your whole family,’ said Emma. ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to.’

Jane suddenly spoke. ‘You need to watch what you say.’

‘I know,’ said Emma. ‘That’s why I’m saying sorry.’

‘Anyway, it’s not that. It’s nothing to do with my aunt.’

Emma thought quickly. ‘Did I say something to you? If I did, I can’t remember.’

‘It’s the way you flirt,’ said Jane quietly. ‘You flirted with Frank at that dinner. I saw you. You can’t seem to leave men alone.’

Emma froze. That was it. Competition: of course Jane Fairfax would have had her eyes on Frank Churchill – what young woman would not? She turned to face Jane. ‘Listen, Jane. I wasn’t really flirting with Frank Churchill. We were just pretending – that’s all.’

‘Oh, yes?’ said Jane sarcastically. ‘An act.’

Emma now began to feel irritated. She was being honest with Jane Fairfax and she was being mocked for it. ‘Yes,’ she said, her tone becoming sharper. ‘That’s exactly what it was.’

‘I doubt it,’ said Jane.

Emma was not accustomed to being disbelieved. It rankled. ‘But it was,’ she protested. ‘It was an act on Frank’s part.’

‘And why would Frank act?’

She hesitated. She did not want to tell Jane what Frank had said to her, but now that she was being falsely accused of flirting with him she would have no alternative. ‘Because he’s not interested in girls. He told me. But he doesn’t want people to know.’

Jane Fairfax gasped. ‘He said that?’ she stuttered. ‘He told you …’ She could not complete her sentence.

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘He wanted to confide in me.’

‘What exactly did he say?’ asked Jane, her voice strained.

Emma shrugged. ‘He told me he had a boyfriend he was going to go travelling with. He didn’t tell me who it was – somebody he met at school, I think. He said they went back a long way. It’s not a big thing. It’s no big deal: lots of people are that way. Who cares?’

‘I do,’ muttered Jane.

‘Well, you shouldn’t,’ said Emma. ‘It’s an entirely private matter. Nobody’s uptight about people’s sexuality any more. Why should they be?’

The rain had come on. Gently, it had crept up on them, and fell now in tiny drops across the windscreen of the Mini Cooper.

‘Please take me home,’ said Jane. ‘Please just take me home.’

20

Harriet Smith called Emma the following morning to invite her to accompany her on a trip to Cambridge. They would not be alone, she explained, as the outing was really for the benefit of a group of Italian students from the language school.

‘Mrs God has hired a small bus,’ she said. ‘There’re twenty seats and only twelve students – so there’ll be bags of room for you. Mrs God won’t be coming herself. We’ll be in charge.’

Emma hesitated. She was not sure that she liked the idea of spending the day in Cambridge with a group of teenagers, but there was something in her mood that disposed her to accept Harriet’s offer. The meeting with Jane Fairfax had not been a comfortable one, and it seemed to her that her relationship with any member of the Bates family was now unlikely ever to be satisfactory, even if she had done her best to apologise to Miss Bates for the specific offence she had given. Certainly, Jane was still behaving towards her in a distant, rather cold manner, and all attempts to get past that seemed to be doomed to failure – which made Emma all the more keen to have her approval. But if that was not to be, it was not to be, and so she decided that she would spend a bit more time with Harriet, who had never rebuffed her and who, she was sure, never would.

She left the car at the language school and joined Harriet and the students on the bus.

‘They’re very excited,’ said Harriet. ‘They arrived in England only a few days ago; they came straight from Stansted Airport. They can’t wait to see Cambridge.’

One of the students overheard this conversation from a seat immediately behind Harriet and Emma. ‘And the railway station,’ he said. ‘We are hoping, please, to see the railway station.’

Harriet turned in her seat. ‘Yes,’ she reassured him. ‘We’ll show you a railway station some time.’

‘Contract?’ pressed the student.

‘Promise,’ sighed Harriet. ‘A contract is an agreement. You promise something when you say that you’ll do it. You give your word.’

‘Promise?’ asked the student.

‘Yes,’ said Harriet. ‘I promise that you’ll see a railway station.’

Emma was intrigued. ‘Why are they so interested in railway stations? Is it because you talk to them about it so much?’

Harriet smiled. ‘Not me. Mrs God does. It’s the first thing she teaches them and they spend rather a lot of time on it. Can you please tell me the way to the railway station? They go on and on about it and I suppose they become rather proud of being able to say it.’

‘How odd,’ said Emma. ‘I imagine they think that this is what people in Britain talk about all the time. Railway stations. The national conversation.’

Harriet was intrigued. ‘What do people talk about in Britain?’ she asked.

Emma thought for a moment. ‘The weather, mostly,’ she said. ‘That’s a very important topic of conversation. Oh, and football. People talk about football, although that’s mostly men.’

‘What do we talk about when they’re talking about football?’

Emma shrugged. ‘We talk about them. They don’t know it, but we talk about them.’

Harriet gave what sounded to Emma like a tiny, half-suppressed squeal of delight. ‘Oh, I think that’s true. I think that’s exactly what we like to talk about. Girl talk. Girl talk about men. Oh, yes!’

Emma glanced at her friend and then looked away. What am I doing, going off to Cambridge with this air … She stopped herself. Something that George Knightley had said to her came back to her, something about advantages in life. She glanced at Harriet again: what was her life? Mrs God and the English Language school? Foreign students going on about how to get to the railway station? A father somewhere whom she had never met who was no more than a biological progenitor and who would not even recognise her if he saw her? A vague hope of a gap year that would probably never materialise?

‘No, you’re right, Harriet,’ she said gently. ‘Men are a very interesting subject.’

Harriet leaned back in her seat as the bus negotiated a bend in the road. ‘But you’re so much more experienced than I am,’ she said. ‘I know so few men, and I’m not sure that I know all that much about the ones I do know.’

‘That surprises me,’ said Emma. ‘You’re very beautiful, Harriet, and men like beautiful girls. They’re funny that way. You’d think that you’d know tons of men.’

Harriet was pleased with the compliment, but her pleasure was soon overtaken by doubt. ‘Yes, I do see them looking at me from time to time, but I never seem to know what to say to men.’

‘Don’t say anything,’ said Emma. ‘What’s there to say, anyway?’

‘For example,’ said Harriet. ‘I was in Holt the other day and this man came up to me and said something I just couldn’t understand.’

‘Perhaps he was asking the way to the railway station.’

Harriet shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘So what did you do?’

Harriet looked embarrassed. ‘I screamed. Not very loudly. Just a little scream.’

Emma looked at her in astonishment. ‘So what happened?’