New to the District

Edward considered for a moment. He usually didn't allow himself to talk about his feelings. Yet, in this strange place with this calm, collected young woman, it was hard not to give in and expose oneself. Finally, he said simply:

"Yes, I miss her."

He fell silent for a moment, then looked up and asked:

"You have another older brother, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have; Robert. He is nine years older than I, and is very often in Town, though he comes into the country for the hunting season. I am closer to John, though." She took a sip from her cup before asking, slightly hesitantly, "Are you and your younger sister very close?"

Edward looked into his tea-cup, studying the soft swirls of steam rising from it. After a long moment he answered:

"Bella is very like ... my brother has been. We ... sometimes don't understand each other very well, but ... we've grown close these last few years. She's one of the few persons who treat me with absolutely no respect."

He really smiled now, but it was an unconscious expression, called forth by fond memories.

Emma saw Torrington's expression, softened by his smile, and had to hide a smile of her own. "I think that brothers and sisters sometimes do not understand each other, but that should not prevent them being close, or loving each other."

Edward looked up; the smile on his face was gone again, but it still lingered in his eyes.

"No, it shouldn't. Neither with family, nor with friends."

He took a sip from the excellent tea. He had suspected that Vickery was close to his sister, deduced it from the way she had been creeping up in conversations while his brother hadn't been mentioned at all. It was somehow comforting to hear her proclaim the same feelings so frankly.

"Have you been in London when you ... came here or has your family already retired to the country?"

"The country. We do not spend the whole Season in Town, though my mother would like to. I prefer the country, though. Town gets a bit... too busy for me sometimes."

The tea was surprisingly good, considering she had no knowledge of where it had come from. "You are closer to your younger sister than to Lady Thine, I think?"

Edward chuckled.

"Liza ... Lady Thine ... would probably very much protest your implied statement that we are close at all. As would I."

He sighed.

"She is my older sister. She's bossy, occasionally cattish and treats me like I'm three years old still and she vastly superior with her five. But what you said is true ... I wouldn't for the world exchange her for somebody else."

Realizing how much he was telling a virtual stranger just now, he felt his cheeks blush and looked away, mortified at his own behaviour. He sounded like some of these romantic poets, carying on about his feelings.

"I... I am sorry, sir. I never meant to pry." Her own cheeks were growing hot now, and she put her cup and saucer down, turning to look out of the window for a moment. What must he think of her!

Edward looked quickly up again, even more mortified now by the fact that he had made her feel uncomfortable. She had asked only a gentle question, one he could have easily bypassed, had he wished it. Yet she had made him comfortable enough to have let his guard down and simply talk, without much thinking. It had been completely his fault, and a very bad way to repay her for the real pleasure of her company. But of course he couldn't let that show now. It would only increase the awkwardness of the situation. So he fought his feelings down and said with a commendably steady and reassuring voice:

"You didn't, Miss Vickery. Please don't apologize. The rather ... male-dominated surroundings of the field-camp have obviously made me more unfit for polite company than I had realized. Forgive me."

Placing his cup and saucer next to the tea-pot, more to give her and him something useful to do than for anything else, he asked, his voice light and unreminding of the moment that had just passed:

"Shall we cry friends and have another cup of tea or would you perhaps prefer to explore what or whom this strange house has in store?"

"There is nothing to forgive," Emma said with a smile, although she still felt that it was more her fault than Captain Torrington's.

"There is enough water for another cup of tea," she added, not completely sure of the propriety of exploring this place in the company of a man she had only just met.

"Then I would be grateful for another cup. I must admit that it is a very pleasant change to most of the tea the field camp has to offer."

Edward sat himself a bit more comfortably in the chair again. His eyes caught on the book beside Miss Vickery.

"I hope I didn't disturb your reading?"

"The same again, then, sir?" she enquired, opening the tea-caddy. "No, you didn't. I had just taken the second volume of my novel from the library and was returning to the breakfast room to begin it when I found myself here."

"Yes, please."

Edward chuckled.

"This house seems to have a strange way of appearing where breakfast is usually served. I was just stepping into my tent to get mine when I arrived here."

Which for some reasons didn't bother him as much as he knew that it should.

"If you have not yet had your breakfast, then maybe the staff here would be amenable in providing some for you," Emma replied, looking for the bell-pull so that she could request some food for him.

That was actually not a bad idea, but of course it was certainly not one he would act on unless Miss Vickery would join him. If she declined, he could very well seek out something to eat later on.

"Would you do me the honour of joining me then? Or have you come here at a vastly different time?"

This was actually a pretty interesting question. It would also be of some interest to know what hour they were having right now. He looked around, but could see no clocks of any kind.

"The owner of this establishment seems to have no liking for timepieces."

"How... strange," she replied, looking around herself. She could not even hear the regular ticking of a long-case clock anywhere, which was most peculiar. "And I do not mind at all if I have some breakfast; it was not short of breakfast time when I discovered myself to be here."

Edward came to his feet and looked around again. To order tea he had opened the door and called for a servant, but this certainly was no way to go on. Finally he spotted the bell-pull beside the fireplace. It was not embroidered, with only one line of colour running down each side of the fabric, but the colour was tastefully chosen to blend in with the surrounding room.

He gave it a measured yank, and somewhere in the distance a bell tingled.

"Should you like the fire to be lit as well?"

"No, I would not like to put the servants to that sort of bother. It is a pleasant enough day, after all, and I do not think it is that cold. Certainly it is not as cold as it was during the last winter." She smiled. "Were you involved the retreat, at all? Captain Vickery wrote me of it, although his letter took some time to reach home because of the weather."

She could only be thankful that her brother had not been involved in the retreat to Corunna. Her friend had written from Folkestone with a description of the men coming ashore there after the retreat and had set the whole family into a paroxysm of nerves until they had received Vickery's letter telling them that he was in Lisbon. It seemed that at least one letter had gone astray as he referred to a letter written soon after leaving Salamanca, which had never reached them.

Edward went to his chair again, but leaned on the back for an instant instead of sitting down. He sadly shook his head.

"No, I have only been in Portugal for two months now. I was fortunate enough to have been with my family when they fought their way back to Corunna. Your brother had been actively involved, however, hasn't he?"

Emma shook her head. "We feared the worst, to begin with - there had been a letter or two that never reached us - but he was not at Corunna, fortunately. His battalion was sent to Lisbon before Sir John began his retreat, I believe." They had pieced together that much knowledge, although doubtless her brother's letters had contained much more information.

"I'm afraid we are rather spoiled by our British postal service. I was told that even the not always unhampered processing of letters by the army is more reliable than what the Peninsula enjoyed otherwise. I'm sorry that you had to suffer from the anxiety of not knowing for such a trivial cause, however."

She looked down at her lap for a moment before looking back up at him. "That is most kind of you, sir. Of course, we had no suspicion that the Army was in retreat at all until after the men reached England with the news - and my brother's next letter was not so very long in coming after that. You may believe that it felt a much longer time than it was, however, and my father had gone down to Portsmouth to try to find out what had happened. We knew only that my brother's battalion had not taken part in the retreat, or the battle, and could not establish anything beyond that."

Edward had talked to some of the men who had come back; he couldn't even begin to imagine how it must have felt for her to hear the stories these men had told. He remembered also that one of the ships carrying soldiers home had been wrecked not fifteen miles off Falmouth with nearly all lives lost.

A picture of his own mother intruded his thoughts, and he looked a bit self-conscious for a moment. Quiet as she kept, he knew that she would infinitely prefer to see him safely home. He couldn't do that, but at least he could write more often, improving the chances that she never had to stay so long without any letters ... Although he seriously doubted the men on the retreat could have sent letters, even had they had time and energy to spare to write them.

Before he could give a polite answer to Miss Vickery, however, a servant entered through the half-open door.

"You rang, Madam, Sir?

Captain Torrington looked thoughtful, and Emma hoped that she hadn't stirred up any unpleasant memories or something of that nature. She was going to ask when servant came in.

"Yes. Would it be possible to have some breakfast brought up, please?" she said with a quick glance in Torrington's direction. She was not sure whether he would merely like some toast, or something more substantial.

"Only some toast and a kipper or something for me, please, and some coffee, if possible."

Edward looked at Miss Vickery, his eyes once again friendly and attentive.

"Or would you prefer some porridge? And I guess some fruit would be welcome."