Free Miss Appleby's Academy by Elizabeth Gill Page B

England.
    Boston was so big that it frightened her, but she found her way to George’s school and her heart lifted. She longed to see him, he came home for such short periods and no matter what she said or did he had nothing to say. Things would be different now, Emma thought resolutely.
    The school was a lovely place as schools go. It was laid out on generous grounds, the campus covering a large hill. The buildings were grey and there were plenty of grassy places for the children to play games.
    She was directed to the principal’s office and impressed upon him that she would very much like to see her nephew, she had come so far and indeed his aunt was very ill and one could not say such things in a letter. The principal was all kindness, yes of course she must spend the rest of the day with George and bring him back after tea.
    The boy who came into the principal’s office was almost a stranger: taller, thinner, he looked older and his face was set. He did not smile or look anxious or seem pleased to see her. He mumbled some form of greeting and didnot look her in the face. It was as though he had become resigned to his fate and no longer cared. He was not interested in why she was there, perhaps she had just wanted to see him, such things did happen at prep schools, she knew.
    The principal said little except that he would expect George back at six. Emma was euphoric for a few moments. The minute they were outside and walking past the triangle of grass towards the school gates George stopped. He looked away at the playing fields.
    And then he said suddenly, but with vehemence, ‘I wish you hadn’t come here. It makes it worse. I’m in trouble all the time. I hate team games and I hate math and—’
    ‘George—’
    Still he didn’t look at her. ‘I would rather have been in that awful little cottage than here, at least I would have been with you, but I can’t because my Aunt Verity wrote and told me you’re going to marry that smelly old man and I’m to be sent to live with other people. I knew how it would be. I just wish you hadn’t come, that’s all, because I already know and I don’t want any tea and you can just go home and marry that – that fat old bastard and I don’t care. I’ll go and live with other people and I hope I never see you again!’
    Bastard was the worst word he could think of, she knew. He was trying to shock her, and suddenly he was all child, he didn’t look so big or so old. He was about to run from her, she thought she heard the intake of breath that was almost a sob and he lowered his eyes as children do whenthey are about to cry, so she said quickly, ‘I’m not going to marry him.’
    George didn’t look hopeful, he didn’t even look up.
    ‘I’m not going to live in the cottage either.’
    That was when he looked at her, light beginning to dawn in his eyes which still gleamed with unshed tears.
    ‘I hope you didn’t leave anything valuable when we came out because you’re not coming back here. We’re going to run away.’
    He didn’t believe her, she could see for a few seconds, and then he looked dubiously at her. ‘How can we do that and where to?’
    ‘We’re going to England, to where I was born, to find my family, to some kind of life which will suit us better than this.’
    George hesitated for just a second. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
    She booked them into a small hotel. They did not eat in the dining room where she thought a single woman and a boy might be remarked upon; they walked a long way before they found a tea room, and there they had sandwiches and cake. She only hoped she had sufficient money to get them to where they were going.
    *
    She had worried about it, had carried the pearls in her pocket onto the train, but she might just as well have had a sign which read ‘I have stolen jewels from my brother and his wife’, she was so certain it was obvious on her face, but nobody noticed. That was the thing about trains:nobody looked