Farewell London
Chapter One
The morning sun slanted through the sash windows of the Ashworth townhouse, laying bright bars across the polished floor of Emily’s bedroom. It was the sort of clean, golden light that comes only in early autumn, when the summer has gone but the cold has not yet arrived, and it made the whole room look as though it had been scrubbed and set out especially for the occasion. Which, in a way, it had.
Emily stood in the middle of it all, straightening the pleats of her green blazer for what felt like the hundredth time. Her new St Elowen’s uniform was neatly pressed, the gold-trimmed collar gleaming, the badge with its little embroidered elm tree stitched proudly above her heart. She had tried it on a dozen times in the past week, in front of the long mirror, turning this way and that, trying to decide whether she looked like a proper boarding-school girl yet. She was not at all sure that she did. She looked, she thought, rather like an ordinary girl wearing a uniform that was waiting for her to grow into it.
Her room smelled faintly of lavender, the scent her mother liked to dab on the curtains, and beneath it drifted the last traces of toast and marmalade from breakfast, floating up through the floorboards from the kitchen below. Emily breathed it in and tried to fix it in her memory, the exact smell of this exact morning, so that she might unfold it again later, far away, when she needed it.
She peeked into her bag once more, making quite sure that everything was neat and in its place. Folded blouses, spare skirts, her wash things, the sensible shoes her mother had insisted upon. And there, laid carefully at the very top where nothing could crush them, sat her diary and a small notebook. Both were worn soft at the edges, the covers curled from handling, for they had kept her company through a great many evenings at her little desk by the window, when she had filled their pages with stories and sketches and secrets that were nobody’s business but her own. Wherever she was going, they were going with her. That, at least, was a comfort.
She felt a sudden tug in her stomach, sharp and unexpected, at the thought that she would not see this room, nor her family, for weeks and weeks. The desk. The window. The particular creak of the third stair. All of it would carry on without her, quiet and empty, while she was somewhere else entirely.
Tucking a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear, she crossed to the window and looked out over the familiar rooftops. South-west London lay spread below in the morning light, chimney pots and slate and the leafy tops of the garden trees, calm and unhurried, as though the whole city were seeing her off. For a moment she quite forgot herself and imagined it lifting a hand to wave.
A soft tapping of slippers on the landing announced her younger sister. Daisy came in slowly, carrying a small doll wrapped with great care in a scrap of shawl, her eyes wide and already glistening with tears she was doing her very best not to spill.
“You really are going?” Daisy’s voice trembled on the words.
“Yes, Daisy.” Emily knelt at once to meet her sister’s gaze, the way she always did when something mattered. She brushed a stray curl from Daisy’s forehead and smiled as gently as she knew how. “I’ll be perfectly fine. And I’ll write every single week, I promise. You’ll get letters full of adventures, more than you’ll know what to do with.”
Daisy sniffled and flung her arms about Emily’s neck, holding on tightly. “I’ll miss you so much.”
“I’ll miss you too.” Emily held her close, breathing in the warm familiar smell of her sister’s hair. Then she drew back, ruffled it, and put on her brightest, most daring grin, the one she kept for cheering Daisy up. “But just imagine! I might discover a secret room, or a hidden passageway behind a bookcase. I’ll tell you every last thing.”
Daisy’s lips curved into the beginnings of a smile, wobbling but real. “Promise?”
“Promise.” Emily said it firmly, and sealed it the way they always sealed such things, with their two smallest fingers hooked together. Then Daisy did a surprising thing. She held out the little doll in its shawl, the one she loved best of all her toys, and pressed it into Emily’s hands.
“Take her,” Daisy said, very seriously. “So you won’t be lonely. And so a bit of home goes with you.” Her chin trembled. “You have to bring her back, though, when term ends. When you come home again. You have to.”
Emily’s throat went tight. For a moment she could not speak at all. Then she folded the little doll carefully and tucked it into the inner pocket of her blazer, where it made a small brave bump over her heart. “I’ll guard her with my life,” she said. “And I’ll bring her home safe, and we shall have stories to tell that are better than any bedtime tale. That’s a proper promise, that is.”
From the hallway below, her mother’s voice floated up, calm but firm. “Emily? Have you packed everything? Gloves, scarves, pens? And whatever you do, do not forget your exercise books.”
“Yes, Mother,” Emily called back, giving the straps of her bag a final tug and smoothing down her blazer.
She turned to find her father standing in the doorway. He was a cheerful man as a rule, quick to laugh, slow to fret, but this morning something uneasy sat behind his smile, the particular look a parent wears when they know they are about to let their child go and cannot for the life of them work out how to stop time from moving.
“You’ll do wonderfully,” he said warmly. “Remember, we’re only ever a letter away, and Kent isn’t the other side of the moon, whatever it may feel like. But I expect you to behave impeccably. And don’t forget, you’re representing this family now. A good name is worth more than gold, Emily. Do what is right, even when it is hard.”
Emily smiled, feeling a warm mix of pride and nerves swirl together in her stomach. “I will, Dad.” She caught the tight little smile that meant he was proud and worried in equal measure. “I’ll be careful,” she added softly, for his sake as much as her own.
And then, all at once, it was time.
Emily hoisted her bags onto her shoulder, feeling their weight, which seemed to be made not only of clothes and books but of expectation and excitement and a good deal of things she had no name for. She stepped out into the crisp London morning. The car gleamed at the kerb under the low sun, and her father held the door for her before loading her case and bags into the boot.
As they pulled away and rolled down the familiar streets, Emily pressed her face to the window and drank in every last detail, storing them up like treasures. There was the little café where she and Daisy had eaten pancakes on Sunday mornings, dripping with lemon and sugar. There was the small bookshop with the brass bell that jingled whenever the door was opened, where she had spent so much of her pocket money that the owner knew her by name. There was the park, and the very stretch of path where she had first learned to ride a bicycle, wobbling and shrieking, her father running along behind with his hand on the saddle. Each one blurred past and was gone, and with each a small pang of leaving tugged at her chest.
Her mother reached back from the front seat and laid a light hand on Emily’s knee. “It will be quite an adventure, you know. You’ll make new friends and learn all manner of things you can’t even imagine yet.”
Emily nodded and did her best to smile. “Yes, I know. It’s just... a lot, isn’t it? All at once.”
Her father gave a soft chuckle. “Every big adventure is a lot at first. That’s rather how you know it’s a big one. You’ll grow into it, just as you’ll grow into that blazer. And who knows? You may come to love it far more than you expect.”
Bit by bit the city loosened its grip. The close-packed houses gave way to gardens, the gardens to green, and at last London fell away altogether and soft rolling hills rose up to meet them. Farms and oast houses appeared, with their strange white cowls, and the land unrolled in a patchwork of fields stitched together with dark hedgerows, dotted here and there with brick cottages and wind-bent trees and sheep grazing in the drowsy light. Emily thought of the pictures in the school brochure: St Elowen’s, with its towering Elm, its grand old house, its sprawling lawns. She pictured secret corners waiting to be found, hidden paths winding away through the trees, long panelled corridors echoing with laughter and whispers.
“Do you think the other girls will like me?” she asked quietly, more to herself than to anyone.
“Of course they will,” said her mother. “Just be yourself. Polite, kind, and curious, that’s all anyone could ever ask for.”
Emily leaned back and closed her eyes. Perhaps it would be lonely at first. Perhaps she would miss home far more than she was letting on. But adventure, real adventure, was waiting for her somewhere at the end of these narrow lanes, and not for the first time she felt the faint, thrilling pull of the unknown stretching out ahead, promising new friends, new challenges, and stories she would carry with her always.
The car hummed on along the winding country roads. Every bend brought a fresh view: hedgerows heavy with the last of the summer’s wildflowers, cattle standing knee-deep in buttercups, the sudden flurry of birds startled up from a field as they passed.
“Is it much further, Dad?” she asked, working to keep her voice steady.
“Not too far now. Another hour, perhaps, depending on the lanes.” He kept his eyes on the twisting road ahead. “They’re narrow as anything out here, but it’s the only way in. Half the charm of the place, your mother would say.”
Emily turned back to the window. They passed a line of sheep standing along a fence, all facing the same way, so still and solemn that they might have been posing for a painting. She smiled to herself.
Noticing, her mother glanced round. “You’ll love it here, Emily, truly. Walking the fields, exploring the orchards, seeing the old manor itself. St Elowen’s is unlike anywhere else you’ve ever been. You’ll never be short of something to see or somewhere to explore.”
“You always say that,” Emily said, smiling despite herself, “and you’ve never once shown me any of it properly.”
Her mother laughed, a little ruefully. “No more I have. Isn’t that a strange thing? I left St Elowen’s the summer I turned eighteen, and I haven’t set foot on the place since, not once, in all these years. I always meant to bring you and show you round myself, long before today, but somehow the years ran away with me, the way they do, and then suddenly here you are, quite old enough to go yourself, and I never did get round to it.” She reached over and touched Emily’s knee. “So today is rather a first for the both of us, in a manner of speaking. I shall see it all fresh again, through your eyes.” Her gaze drifted to the hedgerows. “I daresay a good deal has changed. But some things never do. The Elm will still be there, I should think, and the smell of the chapel, and the way the whole house goes quiet and golden at the end of the day.” She smiled to herself. “We had all sorts of secrets, my friends and I, when I was a girl there. Places we thought no grown-up knew about. I wonder if the girls still find them.”
“Tell me the tower one,” Emily said at once. It was an old favourite, half a family legend by now, though her mother never told it quite the same way twice, and never, in the end, told the ending, because there wasn’t one to tell.
Her mother smiled the particular smile she always wore when that story came up. “You never do tire of that one, do you.” She was silent a moment, remembering. “Very well. Here is the whole of what I know, no more and no less, and it has puzzled me for twenty years and more.
“There was an old tower at one end of the house, always kept locked, and none of us was ever allowed up it. And yet, every now and then, on the darkest nights, you would look up from the dormitory window and there would be a light burning in the very top of it. A small, warm little light, high up where nobody was meant to be.” She shook her head slowly. “We asked and asked, but no one would ever tell us what it was, or who lit it. In all my years there, I never found out. I’ve often wondered since.”
A curious thrill ran down Emily’s spine, though she could not have said quite why. A locked tower. A light that nobody would explain.
“Perhaps I shall find out for you,” she said.
“Perhaps you shall,” said her mother, amused. “You always did like a mystery better than a comfortable answer.”
Emily tried to picture it all: the grand house, the tall chapel windows catching the sun, the corridors with their echoing footsteps, and the famous Elm her mother had spoken of, and now, threaded through it, that small high golden light in a tower nobody would explain. She imagined the girls she might meet, some timid, some bold, some kind and some perhaps a little wicked. Perhaps she would find a friend who loved reading as much as she did. Perhaps someone who would dare her to creep out and explore a forgotten corner of the estate by moonlight.
The talk drifted into a comfortable quiet, leaving only the hum of the engine and the soft swish of the wheels. Emily’s thoughts wandered ahead to the letters she would write, the very first note she would send to Daisy, describing her new bed, the strange new meals, and whatever adventures she had managed to find already.
After a while the car turned off the main road and rumbled over a narrow single-track stone bridge, and Emily’s eyes went suddenly wide. There, framed against the horizon, rose the silhouette of a castle. Its grey walls climbed proudly out of the surrounding fields, its round towers reaching up into the sky, the whole of it doubled in the still water of a wide moat. It was not a ruin but a whole castle, complete, as though it had stepped straight out of the pages of a medieval storybook, and Emily felt her chest tighten with pure excitement.
“Shall we stop?” her father asked, easing the car to a gentle crawl. “There’s a little spot with a view of it. I thought you might like to stretch your legs.”
Her mother smiled. “And I’ve brought tea and cake. A small treat, before we go on.”
The car pulled off into a grassy clearing on a low rise overlooking the castle, and the engine ticked quietly as it cooled. Emily’s legs had gone stiff with sitting, and she hopped down gladly, feeling the grass beneath her shoes, still cool and damp with the last of the morning’s dew.
Her mother poured tea into three small cups, the good rich smell of it rising into the air, and her father unwrapped the cake, a moist sponge studded with currants and dusted lightly with sugar. Emily took a careful sip, the warmth spreading through her cold fingers, and a bite of cake, and thought that nothing in all the world had ever tasted quite so good.
“It’s perfect,” she said, gazing out at the castle. “Like something from a story. It seems almost a shame to eat cake while looking at it.”
Her mother laughed softly. “It’s the small things one remembers, Emily. A quiet moment, a fine view, the smell of tea and cake on a hillside. Sometimes those matter more than all the grand adventures put together. Don’t forget to notice them.”
Her father leaned back, hands behind his head, looking out across the moat. “I came here myself when I was a boy, you know. It’s called Bodiam. I stood just about here and imagined knights and princesses, and treasure hidden away in the towers. Perhaps you’ll have adventures of your own like that, up at St Elowen’s.”
Emily giggled, her head already spinning with possibilities. “I hope so. I should like to find a secret tower, or a hidden garden. Or a treehouse deep in the woods, where I could sit and write and nobody would ever find me.”
“You’d better write it all down carefully, then,” said her mother, with a look of mock severity. “We shall expect quite brilliant letters home, mind.” Emily smiled, warm with the nearness of her parents and the thrill of everything to come. She watched the sunlight ripple across the old castle walls and imagined the long shadows stretching down its corridors, full of whispered secrets that only a brave girl might uncover.
“Shall we be off, then?” said her father cheerfully at last.
Emily helped gather up the cups and napkins, and found she felt lighter than before, her nerves gentled by tea and cake and the easy company of her family.
They drove on, and the castle slipped away behind them, giving way to lanes lined with apple orchards heavy with fruit, fields of wheat rippling in the breeze, and hedgerows spangled with late flowers. Emily’s imagination roamed free. She wondered again what the other girls would be like, and whether she would fit in among them.
She closed her eyes, and let the hum of the engine and the sweet green smell of the countryside lull her gently down into a doze. The unknown stretched ahead of her, brimming with promise. The Elm, the clock tower, the old manor, everything she had dreamed of, was very nearly within her reach.
She woke with a start as the car jolted over a bump and crested one last gentle hill. And there, in the distance, she caught her first true glimpse of it: a grand, rambling house of many tall windows, standing amid a great sweep of parkland thick with ancient trees, a towering cedar keeping watch over the sweep of the drive. Her heart leapt clean up into her throat.
St Elowen’s was real.
Her adventure had begun.