“Fine with me.”
“Right, then. That’s settled. So here’s Stow.”
They entered a village that was what Moreton might have been like fifty years before. Stores and offices made of Cotswold stone lined both sides of the street that led into the center of town, some with thatched roofs, some with shingles. They passed a town hall, a pub, a grocer, a bank, a butcher, a dentist. There seemed to be one of everything needed for a town to survive on its own without any interaction from the outside, ever.
“There’s the hardware store,” Charlotte said, pointing to a toast brown building with a shiny red sign with black lettering in front. “It’s called Browne and Sons Hardware now. Used to be Havelock Hardware. We sold it the year Ollie retired. I used to have tea with him Saturday afternoons before Rose came. I’d bring it down in the basket of my bike. Down that way is our train station, soif your mum wants to come see you, she can come straight here. Oh, and there’s my church.” Charlotte nodded toward a castlelike structure with a bright blue door and a steeple arrowing past the treetops. “And down that way is the primary school. The secondary school is back behind us a bit. I’ll show them to you sometime if you want.”
“That’s all right,” Emmy said as politely as she could. She didn’t see much purpose to that. It was June. The school term was three months away.
Then they were back in the countryside, on a narrow, treelined lane.
“This is the Maugersbury Road,” Charlotte said. “The village officials had to take all the road signs down because of the war, but everyone here knows this road leads to little Maugersbury. Rose and I live on the edge of both towns. Maugersbury is small, just a few houses, some farms, and the manor, really. Now, tell me about you. What do you girls like to do when you’re not in school?”
Emmy nodded to Julia so that she could answer first. “Well, I like going to the park and playing with my paper dolls and I like Thea’s cat and kittens and I like going to my friend Sybil’s house because she has lots of toys. And her own tea set.”
“Well, how lovely.” Charlotte beamed. “My back garden is sort of like a park. I’ve lots of fruit trees and a little pond and a vegetable garden and chickens. And I have the tea set that was mine when I was a little girl. I’ll have to get it out for you.”
“Do you have a pony?” Julia said, as animated as Emmy had seen her since Thea’s kittens were born.
“I don’t have a pony. But my neighbor has two goats. Edgar and Clementine. And my other neighbor has a miniature horse named Jingles.”
Julia whipped her head around to face Emmy, her eyes bright with anticipation and an “I told you so” gleam.
“How about you, Emmeline? What do you like to do?”
“Emmy draws brides,” Julia said before Emmy could answer, her attention fully back on Charlotte.
“She draws brides?”
“Their dresses. She has drawn a whole bunch. She gave me some. I have them inside my book. You want to see?”
“Well, perhaps when I am not driving.” Charlotte glanced at Emmy, hoping for a fuller explanation.
“I like to sketch bridal designs,” Emmy said. “I am hoping, I mean, I am planning to become a designer. I had a job at a bridal shop. Until today.”
“Oh. I see. I’m so sorry you had to leave it, Emmeline.”
Her empathy was genuine and full, almost too much for Emmy to handle.
“Her dresses are really pretty,” Julia continued, and Emmy was happy for the interruption. “She has them in the brides box. I like to look at them and Emmy lets me whenever I want as long as she is there with me. I’m not supposed to get them out when she’s not home.”
“I would love to see them sometime,” Charlotte said. “If you don’t mind showing them to me, that is.”
“Um. Sure,” Emmy said. Charlotte’s interest, almost maternal in nature, was strangely welcome.
“If you like, I can show you my wedding dress sometime,” Charlotte said, her smile broad. “Oh my goodness, Emmeline. Just wait until you see what was in style back when I got married. Would you like to?”
Emmy nodded, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She found she could not speak.
Charlotte seemed to pick up on this. It was as if sheknew Emmy needed the topic of discussion to shift to something not so desperately personal.
“So, we are almost to Thistle House,” Charlotte said. “I need to tell you girls that my sister, Rose, is a dear soul, but she’s a bit forgetful and simpleminded. She’s only a year younger than I am, but you would do me a great favor by thinking of her—if you don’t mind—as if she were five.”
“Why does she think she’s five?” Julia asked, genuinely concerned.
“She doesn’t think she’s five. She just has a difficult time thinking like an adult would think. Rose was in an accident a long time ago. It was very bad and we thought she might die. She finally came back to us, but she came back different. When she woke up from her injuries, it was as if she were a little girl again and she just stayed that way.”
“How old was she when that happened?” Emmy’s sympathies had been aroused as only a fellow sister’s would.
