Thanks for all the support and reviews, I'm sorry it has been 100 years since I updated. Please let me know that you are still interested in this story. I'll put effort into continuing to write. Life has been busy and I've just felt really exhausted constantly. I've got a new computer on order, so I'll likely have more inspiration to write than I've had of late-my laptop takes eons to fire up these days!

Chapter 36

Return to me


Donwell Abbey

"Very well done," she said smiling and averting her eyes from the brown pool in the center. It was an amalgamation of nearly every colour in the watercolour pallet.

"You know who would enjoy this artwork?" Emma asked, the girl looked excited and bright-eyed.

"My sister and her daughter Bella," Emma told her and she couldn't help but notice the girl's crestfallen expression that flickers for a brief moment before dispersing into her natural expression. She knew she has made a false step somewhere but wasn't immediately sure how.

She delved into an explanation instead of allowing for silence, "My niece Bella was just gifted a watercolour set this very month, and I do not know if she has tried it yet, but certainly this might inspire her!" Emma continued wishing for anything to bring back the bright eye expression.

"Really! You think she would like it?" The small girl asked happily, sounding very surprised.

"I know it!" Emma assured, "and we will make many more, I can think of many others who would delight in artwork, both here at the estate and in the village," she assured.

"And my mother?" Amy asked, looking hopeful.

Emma understood it then, and felt silly for not having it in mind earlier, of course, the girl's first thought would be with her mother! Emma felt daft for not suggesting the idea of placing the best picture aside in wait for the child's mother. "Once she is well enough rested, I am sure of it," Emma told her, "but in the meantime, she must not be disturbed, so we might save her series of paintings that we think she would enjoy best!"

"Very well," Amy agreed, "I think my next attempt will be better as some of the colours have smudge into the brown patch—but maybe she'd still like this one?" Amy asked looking at the drying watercolour.

"Oh, I am certain she would," Emma smiled. "You can continue. I'll go into the house and bring my letter paper outside and I'll write a missive to accompany it,"

And on returning with her paper and pens she said, "I am certain it will suit perfectly for Isabella and little Bella, I will write in the letter that it is a very first attempt at watercolour," Emma assured. "And I will even sign it for you this time, but then we must continue practicing your letters so you might write your own name on the next ones,"

Brunswick Square

"What do you make of it?" Isabella asked the brothers, turning the paper around, and then around again trying to decide which side was upward.

"I'm not fully sure, I dare say our Bella might make a matching article if she set her hand to it," John chuckled before passing by them and sitting at a desk to the side of the same room.

"Yes, well Emma did say her friend Amy had produced it, and that Bella might be keen to learn colour work as well,"

"What do you make of it?" Isabella asked George specifically continuing her staring at the picture.

"I'm not fully sure, she does mention her friend is a beginner and wishes little Bella to begin painting and send back a copy," George replied, looking up from Emma's short but neatly scrawled letter.

"But who is this Amy? It seems little Bella might have painted this very picture! Is it Amy Glendenning's—I thought she was a good degree older than Emma? John, what is Amy Glendenning's married name?"

"Albright? Wasn't it?" John echoed a disembodied voice from the desk after a long pause.

"Yes, that's it!" Isabella acknowledged. "Would it be Amy Albright that is visiting Donwell?"

"I wouldn't know, she confided it to all of us in the same letter, her friend in need of a temporary reprieve from her living environs," George replied, and then he too was looking at the picture Isabella still held.

"Peculiar! I didn't even think they were any sort of friends, although she did remain in the county and it is a small community, after all, one is certainly more limited than they would be in London as to friends and acquaintances. Do you think Amy Albright is in some sort of familiar trouble? I had not heard of anything, but then again I haven't thought of her in years, she is a few years older than you George," Isabella mused.

It was later in the evening when John left his work at his desk to rejoin him, Isabella had been off to put the children to bed and he had been watching the candle flicker light against the walls, he didn't even have an appetite for reading, which seemed a rare feeling.

"I'll say it if you are in need of the suggestion, but you, brother, should go home to your wife."

He sighed in response.

"It is clear you aren't growing any less miserable here,"

"I'm not miserable," he protested.

"Maybe not yet, but you are despondent and I guarantee eventually that you will be, it is written all across your face. You need to go home and spend time with Emma—make it right, whatever is between you to have you arrive here mid-way through harvest—whatever it is, make it right, repair it," he said.

He continued "I feel you've come to prove a point to her, but I'd hazard a guess you've only succeeded in proving to yourself just how much you need things to be right with her. You've been the best of friends for longer than either of you can remember. You are both stubborn creatures, one must bend or you both will break, and that is sound advice—you know it. And I know that you would tell me the very same thing if I escaped to Donwell in the midst of some strife or due to an argument with Isabella, you can't deny that,"

"I can't deny it," George sighed again, for what else was there to do or say? His brother was right of course.

He'd go home but to what end? He felt no different than he did upon leaving Donwell a week and a half ago.

And if nothing had changed, what then?

He could almost imagine Emma and her friend having tea and having to pretend for all the world that everything was completely fine. The very thought seemed so deceitful, but yet what else could one do? To do anything but pretend would be to have some lady turn-a-round to all her other friends. To do anything else would simply give grounds for the spread of senseless gossip and he'd not allow for that.

He felt as a man would at a crossroad, where no direction seemed best nor held the slightest hint of promise but with the full knowledge that he couldn't merely stay there—as the crossroad was no place of presence or dwelling.

And so the following day he'd done as his brother suggested and he left, he'd even decided to pack his things and send his trunk by coach so that he might enjoy the trip at a faster clip on horseback.

Donwell Abbey

He had never had the thought before; it was as he approached the gates of Donwell on horseback that the thought came into his mind. And it was then he thought maybe he should have announced his arrival –to his own home no doubt. It was an absurd thought but one that he struggled to shake, it almost felt he own estate was no longer fully his but as if it belonged perhaps more to Emma than to his own name.

And it was indeed absurd, but he couldn't unthink it.

He felt oddly like a vagrant and it was for this reason and only this reason that he chose to change from his riding clothes into something else before greeting Emma. He thought maybe splashing some water on his face and putting on a nicer jacket might restore his confidence as the owner of said Estate.

He wasn't sure or not if it worked but the fresh clothes seemed to distract him if nothing else.

And when he entered the back garden, he saw tea set for three but no figures about.

He surveilled the empty lawn for a few moments and then he saw Emma, running no less, with her skirts held in hand to prevent them catching in her footpath or tripping her up, and she was running with peals of laughter trailing after her as she did.

This first thought was this was some ghost of Emma's past, the childish and wildness she'd left behind at twelve or thirteen, but in her adult figure and in a lilac dress.

"What are you doing?" He called out, and even as it did so he was not sure if he ought to expect an answer. "What is going on here?" He added on the heels of his first inquiry.

"George!" She looked at him happily, pausing talking easily though slightly breathless in her tone "What is going on? Oh, I'm in half mourning now as of last week and I've traded charcoals, browns and aubergines for light greys, lilacs and lavender tones—I've also permitted myself to play hide and seek tag," she said before quickly crouching and hiding behind a tall shrub.

And it wasn't long before the very same hiding spot was discovered by a small mousey girl wearing one of Emma's old costume dresses, pinned at the back with clips to prevent it from slipping off, pretend ear bobs and glass costume jewels he remembered Miss Taylor buying Emma when Emma was eight or nine. As the girl found Emma behind the shrubbery both parties erupted into laughter.

And the girl stopped laughing as they rounded the hedgerow once she saw him, and she turned about right away and asked Emma, "Is that George?"

Emma must have whispered something, the girl clapped both of her hands over her mouth and her eyes were as wide as dinner plates when she looked back at him.

When she stood about five or six paces away the little girl did an awkward sort of bow –and spoke out a very meek sounding "Mr. Knightley,"

It was his turn to be at a loss of words.

What was going on here?

Was this the reason for his housekeeper's awkward demeanor?

Beyond greeting him with a chirped out version of his name she'd scarcely said anything else. He thought maybe it was how dusty he had looked after his ride home that had her tongue tied, averting her eyes almost as quickly as she took notice of him. As if it took all of her focus not to berate him for bringing an extravagant amount of filth into her front rooms and up the stairs.

"Well done, you've found and caught me, but you still must find Harriet," Emma reminded the girl who still seemed a little shocked.

"She is very good at hiding, isn't she Emma?" the girl exclaimed, and he could tell she still was watching him as her focus drifted between he and his wife.

"Indeed, but you are very good at finding, so she is sure to be outmatched, be quick and I'll turn the timer over and we will see who wins," she told her as she reached for the miniature hourglass on the table.

Emma was still smiling, and not with one that seemed to hold any sort of motive, just a pleasant expression.

"You sent no word that you were coming, I would have asked for the cook to make something other than soup and buns for dinner," she told him and again there was no malice in it, merely as if she felt that it was the logical point of conversation.

"Emma, what exactly is going on here?"

"Well up until a moment ago it was a rather refreshing game of hide and seek tag,"

"And the child, all dressed up in one of your childhood costumes and trinkets?"

"Oh, why that's Amy and she is staying here at Donwell while her mother is convalescing, I mentioned it in a few of the letters, which I'm not sure if you took the time to read," she offered softly, and something in her careful tone led him to think she was aware that she had been less than transparent. "I did also send one of her paintings to Isabella and little Bella; you may have seen that if you hadn't read the letters,"

"I read the letters, but we all had it in our heads that it was Amy Glendenning that was staying with you here."

Emma chortled, "No! Certainly not," she laughed again, "you all must have been somewhat confused by the watercolour picture I must imagine," her giggles continued.

That was putting it mildly; he recalled Isabella's contorted and confused face as she turned the picture end over end trying to decipher which side was up.

She added, "I was less than forthcoming, I wanted to tell you about the plan I had made with Dr. Hughes and Mr. Perry but I was concerned you might say no. And you would be right to be disappointed that I didn't ask you,"

"And what plan was it that you had made with Dr. Hughes and Mr. Perry?" He asked, trying to understand exactly what it was she hadn't told him before determining his reaction to it.

"Her mother is very ill and they were willing to try recommendations from leading medical experts in London and Guy's hospital studies. In fact, Doctor Hughes was only recently at a lecture that discussed profound improvement for many with previously unknown diagnoses—"

"And they are not certain of what is wrong with her mother at present?" He asked.

"I have not had a recent update, but they were very hopeful last we spoke before commencing the treatments," she explained.

"And what will happen if they are not successful? You'll place efforts to locate the child's father no doubt," he said, but it was the way he spoke it that would lead anyone to think he didn't really believe it himself.

"Well no, for the girl's father we know is dead, which only makes me more and more grateful for how long I had my own dear papa," she said tearing up, "I hadn't realized how truly spoilt I was by it until recently," she explained. "But as much as I don't wish to think on it, if the worst should transpire then I would put an outrageous about of energy into finding the girl's next of kin,"

"So this isn't some attempt to adopt her?" he asked.

"No," she spoke at first sounding a little horrified, "I mean if she truly had no one I would not turn her away to be abandoned to nature! I'm not sure any Christian would and besides there are plenty of rooms at Donwell. But before you speculate, that is not my motive; my only goal is that her mother shall make a full recovery,"

"And if the worst should happen and she didn't, you might think of letting her live at Goddard's School? I think the rectory even has a grant for it but certainly you would support that cause if it was required,"

Emma looked stung, "I do not wish to think on that now, for at present her mother is alive and hopefully on the path to a full recovery,"

"Simply tell me that you do not wish to keep her and we will move to a different subject,"

She gave a full sigh, "I wish for her to be safe at home again with her mother, in that cottage but with enough to eat and wood for the fire and a mother that loves her very much, who is healthy enough to work and provide for them both –and if possible I wish to help her go to school –at least enough to learn to read and we are working on her letters and simple words –so it is possible that she might have a good new start once her mother is well,"

"Then that is very amiable and I hope that you are right,"

She nodded silent for a few moments. "You thought I might just selfishly keep her?" And it was a very quiet tone, one she used when she wasn't sure of herself—a tone he'd scarcely remembered hearing but maybe twice.

"I wasn't fully sure what to think, something about the secrecy of it all perhaps heightened the impression that things were not as they seemed," his words were honest but measured.

And he wondered about saying more but it was just then that Harriet and the girl Amy rounded the house near the shrubbery and entered view once more.

"I have not changed my thoughts on wanting a child but I'd not think to pilfer one—if that puts your mind at ease," she offered with what could only be described as a stern look.

"Emma, I—I wasn't implying—" he cut himself off as the others had entered the area, and Emma turned her attention to straightening up the tea table as they neared the patio area. And it was fully confounding that she would say a thing such as that lightly, having no real understanding of what it was she was saying. To want children as if they were brought in by stork or some such other hands-off process. He wasn't sure if it made him more or less a man but the process was not something that he'd not thought about, she was his wife after all but how could he relay to her the entirety of was she was asking without coming across as fully debased? For he was certain if she understood the particulars she'd not be saying such things lightly. He could almost imagine her red-faced and issuing a retraction-that she had not known and therfore had not meant it.

When the others approached he was immediately stepping back into a familiar and somewhat force cordial welcome to Harriet—he'd scarily seen her and perhaps the last time he had really thought anything about Harriet Smith was with the proposal from and the prompt rejection of his own friend Robert Martin.

He'd half a mind to ask Harriet if she had any plans to visit her friends at Abbey Mill this season if only he could have played the unwitting jester with such a question. He half wondered if it would be like salt in a wound to her or if she would scarily think anything of it at all –silly girl.

He knew himself prone to taking on the offense of a friend, but he was careful to be certain his face did not betray any of his thoughts and instead found himself saying things, as one often does like, "Thank you" and "Yes, London was very agreeable," and it was probably for the best.


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