Emma: There's No Turning Back

  Copyright information

  Copyright © 2014 Linda Mitchelmore

  Published 2014 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Linda Mitchelmore to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78189-095-0

  For my grandchildren, Alexander and Emily Newson – you bring me so much joy.

  And in memory of my aunt and uncle, Frances and Jona Vale, who gave me so much love.

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  About the Author

  More Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  More from Choc Lit

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to the Choc Lit team for loving Emma as much as I do.

  Thanks must go to my friends Rosemary and Cliff Brumfield for help with research and for introducing me to the wonders of the right-click button respectively.

  My life would be poorer without the cyber support of Jan Wright and Jennie Bohnet – thanks, girls.

  Brixham Writers, as always, provide excellent feedback – thank you one and all.

  My husband, Roger, ate rather more takeaways than is probably good for a man to eat while I was working on EMMA, so a massive thank you to him for not moaning, not even once.

  My son, James, and my daughter, Sarah, are hugely supportive of me, and it’s rare that their eyes glaze over when I’m talking about writing. Thanks, you two – you’re the best.

  Chapter One

  October 26th 1911. Emma knew she would never forget the date – she was as sure of that as she was sure of her love for Seth.

  ‘But we were both born in this parish,’ she said. ‘We’ve lived here all our lives. My parents were married in this very church. Seth owns a fishing fleet and gives local men a living. Houses them. So what do you mean you can’t marry us?’

  Emma gripped Seth’s hand tightly for support.

  ‘As you heard, Miss Le Goff.’

  ‘But you’re a vicar. It’s what vicars do, marry people. I’m eighteen, Reverend Thomson, old enough to marry. I know I’m an orphan and can’t get my papa’s permission, but I’m sure Dr Shaw will speak for me if—’

  ‘Let it go, Emma,’ Seth said.

  ‘You’d be wise to take heed of what your fiancé tells you, Miss Le Goff. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other people to see.’ The Reverend Thomson heaved his bulk out of his high-backed over-stuffed chair and walked towards the bell pull.

  Huh, Emma thought, it’s as though we’re not fit for his company. Well, she hadn’t said all she wanted to say to the Reverend Thomson yet.

  Emma prised her hand from Seth’s and raced across the room to put herself between the vicar and the bell pull. He resolutely refused to meet her eye. But whichever way he looked, Emma dodged in front of him. Faced him. Challenging.

  ‘Is that can’t or won’t marry us?’ she asked. ‘Just so as we know before we leave.’

  The Reverend Thomson sighed heavily. ‘Joining a couple together in holy matrimony is always at the discretion of the vicar. If I feel a couple doesn’t understand the sanctity of marriage, or there are … are … other reasons, I …’

  Seth took advantage of the hesitation.

  ‘Are you referring to my family, Mr Thomson? My late brother, Carter, perhaps?’

  The vicar turned around slowly to face Seth. ‘Not particularly, no. But that is in the equation. I’ve heard, on good account, that you, Miss Le Goff – a single woman – lived under the roof of one, Matthew Caunter. And—’

  ‘I was his housekeeper, Mr Thomson. Did no one bother to tell you that? You have a housekeeper yourself. And no wife. Do people make assumptions about that?’

  ‘I don’t think—’ Mr Thomson began, but Emma wasn’t finished yet.

  ‘Mr Caunter took me in and gave me employment when no one else in this town would. They were all, including those who go to church regularly, shunning me. Well, all except Seth, of course.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ the Reverend Thomson snapped. ‘Just as serious is the fact that there’s a shadow of doubt hanging over your late mother, Miss Le Goff.’

  ‘The coroner’s verdict was “accidental death by drowning”,’ Emma said wearily – oh, to have a sovereign for every time she’d had to tell someone that.

  ‘And I have a letter, written by my brother, Carter, confessing to having …’ Seth began. He went to stand beside Emma, putting an arm around her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I have to say this,’ he whispered to her. ‘My brother, Reverend Thomson, confessed to having been party to Rachel Le Goff and her son Johnnie falling from the cliff. Mrs Le Goff was running away from him. I can show you the letter.’

  ‘Do you think anything a murderer might have to say on the night before he went to the gallows would hold any sway with me?’

  ‘How dare you!’ Emma was white hot with rage now. ‘What Carter Jago was isn’t Seth’s fault! And the coroner’s verdict was good enough for the Reverend Toop at the time. He gave my mama and Johnnie a lovely funeral. The whole town turned up.’ She glanced at Seth. His pa and his brothers hadn’t been there, but Emma had glimpsed Seth afterwards among the gravestones, solemnly watching as her mama and Johnnie were lowered into the earth. ‘Almost the whole town.’

  ‘The previous incumbent was obviously a softer touch than I am. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

  The Reverend Thomson sidestepped Emma and Seth and walked to the door. ‘I’ll have Mrs Dunn show you out.’

  ‘We’ll find our own way,’ Seth said.

  ‘Yes,’ Emma agreed. ‘And we won’t be back. Not ever.’

  ‘Did you mean that?’

  Emma, her arm through Seth’s, leaned into him. They were walking the gravel paths of the cemetery, habit taking them to family graves: Seth’s mother’s, with its ornately carved headstone; and Emma’s pa’s, with its far simpler tablet; and her mother’s and Johnnie’s, the same as her pa’s but with a dove etched over Johnnie’s name. Seth had had them made for Emma because she hadn’t been able to afford them herself at the time. A surprise. A gift. A testimony to his love for her.

  ‘Every word. I’m never going to the r
ectory again, no matter what. Or the church. But we’ll have to come here, won’t we?’

  They’d reached her mama’s and Johnnie’s joint grave now. It didn’t seem possible that it was over two years since they’d been laid to rest. Emma bent to trace her finger along the wording.

  ‘And we will. We’ll come at night, sweetheart, if the Reverend Thomson puts his sexton on watch to keep us out during the day.’

  Emma wanted to laugh because the thought of her and Seth creeping about the cemetery in the dark trying to find the graves was a funny idea. But the laugh wouldn’t come.

  ‘I wanted to lay my wedding bouquet here,’ she said, a catch in her voice. She knew exactly which flowers she would carry on her wedding day – wild flowers if there were any to be had, and if not stocks; heady musky-scented stocks. White ones for preference. And a white bud rose as a buttonhole for Seth. ‘So my mama was part of our day. And I thought you could put your buttonhole flower on your ma’s grave and—’

  ‘We still can,’ Seth interrupted. ‘There are other churches. The Baptist chapel?’

  ‘No! I’ve never been a Baptist. Baptists are too sanctimonious my mama always said, saying you can’t have a drink of sherry – even at Christmas – or put brandy in your puddings. Besides, I was christened in this church. I don’t want the Reverend Thomson and his narrow-mindedness forcing us into something we don’t want. I’ll know when I see the right place for us to marry.’

  ‘But we’ll marry soon,’ Seth said. ‘I love you and want to make a statement to the world to say so.’

  ‘Oh, Seth, you say the loveliest things.’

  Emma felt her eyes welling with tears. She was already emotional from their unpleasant confrontation with the Reverend Thomson, but now she was overcome by her feelings for Seth; an emotion that began somewhere behind her breastbone and radiated outwards with warmth. And it wasn’t just his looks – jet-black hair, and skin that looked as though he’d been out in the sun all day, even in winter; eyes the colour of ebony almost. How delicious it was to stand on tiptoe to reach his lips and kiss his full, soft, mouth. She had to pinch herself sometimes that Seth had chosen her when there were girls from richer backgrounds he could have chosen.

  ‘All true, sweetheart,’ Seth said. ‘I won’t have people talking about you, blackening your name.’

  ‘Any more than they already have! It’s only words, Seth. Words can’t kill me. I won’t let them.’

  Emma pulled the collar of her coat tight against her neck. There was a stiff breeze blowing in from Lyme Bay. Slate-grey clouds were hastening the darkening of the sky. Beattie Drew, Seth’s housekeeper, had told Emma that there was going to be snow before Christmas, she was sure of it; she could feel it in her waters. Emma had laughed and said she’d put a bet on it that there wouldn’t be, because it rarely snowed at the water’s edge and she was certain she wouldn’t lose her money.

  ‘Come on,’ Emma said, chuckling just thinking about Beattie Drew with her mop of curly grey hair no brush or comb could tame, and the funny things she said. Mrs Drew wasn’t going to find it so funny being denied the chance to wear a new hat for Emma and Seth’s wedding though. ‘Let’s get back to Mulberry House. The dining table was delivered yesterday – I want to see how it looks all set up for dinner.’

  Not that they would be eating there. Seth still lived at his old family home, Hilltop House, and Emma in one of his properties, Shingle Cottage. But they’d be in Mulberry House soon – just as soon as they were married, and then Seth would put Hilltop House up for sale.

  ‘Let’s,’ Seth said. ‘You do like it, don’t you?’

  ‘Mulberry House?’ Emma asked, and Seth nodded. ‘You know I do.’

  Seth was full of surprises – buying Mulberry House for one. Just imagine, Emma had thought at the time, what it would be like to go out and buy a house the same way as other, less well-off people went out to buy a packet of tea. But he had. And he’d been happy for Emma to choose the furnishings for it. And as for the fitting out of a stable beside it into a bakery for Emma, well, it still felt like a dream to her at times, that he’d done all that.

  On impulse, Emma threw her arms around Seth’s neck and kissed him long and hard. She hoped her mama’s spirit was around somewhere and would be able to sense that Emma had found the love of her life.

  ‘The Reverend Thomson might have refused to marry us, Seth Jago, but I’ve got a plan.’

  It didn’t take Emma long to put her plan into action. By November 18th she was all set. Seth was always encouraging her to spoil herself with lovely things – giving her the money to buy them with – and now she had. At Bobby’s department store she’d bought some deep lilac shantung, just a few shades away from purple; it had cost five guineas, and she’d made it into a wedding dress for herself.

  Her mama – skilled with a needle – had made dozens of wedding dresses before her untimely death. Most of them had been white and if Emma closed her eyes and thought hard, she could still see them, draped in old sheets, hanging like ghosts from the picture rail, waiting for the brides to collect them. ‘Make one for me, Mama,’ the young Emma had begged often. And her mama had promised that yes, she would when the time came. But for her mama that time never came.

  So Emma had made it herself on an old treadle sewing machine borrowed from a neighbour; one of the few neighbours who believed the coroner’s verdict and didn’t shun her as many in the town still did. Emma had surprised herself at how well the dress had turned out.

  ‘You’re mad, you are,’ Seth said. ‘But I still adore you.’

  Emma fiddled with the red carnation in Seth’s buttonhole.

  ‘Just one thing, though,’ Seth said. ‘Not so long ago, when I first asked you to marry me down on Crystal Cove, you said you wanted wild flowers, or white stocks for your bouquet and a white rose for my buttonhole and now—’

  ‘I know. And we will have all those things one day. But for now, we’ll have this.’ Emma pulled off a damaged petal from Seth’s rose and dropped it onto the grass. ‘My, but you look good enough to eat. And I adore you so much I might just take a nibble later.’

  ‘Emma! This is holy ground!’ Seth waved an arm in an arc out over the graveyard that was like so many others attached to country churches, yet was totally unfamiliar to them. Emma’s plan had amused him, even though he’d done his best to talk her out of it.

  But he was going along with it. Emma had known he would.

  ‘The photographer’s coming. Look!’ Emma pointed to the bend in the lane where she could see a man in a tall hat driving a pony and trap daintily towards them. ‘Don’t I look like every inch a bride?’ Emma said, laughing.

  ‘Fishing for compliments?’ Seth asked, smiling down at her.

  ‘Of course! It’s a bride’s prerogative.’

  Something fizzed and tickled inside Emma – like sherbet dropped into a glass of lemonade – she was so happy.

  ‘You look wonderful, and you know it, in that dress.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir.’ Emma giggled. ‘I know it was expensive but I can always cut it down to make dresses for our daughter, when we have one.’

  Although she hoped that wouldn’t be too soon. She had a business to get off the ground first. A couple of years maybe, but if one came along before then, well … she’d think about that if it happened.

  ‘And do you like my bridal bouquet, Seth Jago? Isn’t it beautiful?’ She waved her trailing bouquet of deep red roses at him.

  ‘It is. And you look beautiful. But then you looked beautiful to me that day when you turned up at Shingle Cottage in clothes that were torn and too big for you and—’

  ‘I accept the compliment, thank you. But I want to forget all that. Once our wedding photograph is in a silver frame on our mantelpiece at Mulberry House, I’ll make sure the local gossips know about it.’

  Seth laughed. ‘I can see life with you is never going to be straightforward. That photographer didn’t bat an eyelid when you told him the photograp
hs taken on our wedding day didn’t come out, so we want to recreate them today.’

  ‘Minus guests,’ Emma said, with a wry smile. ‘I did wonder if he might guess we were up to something when I said our guests were all struck down with the influenza.’

  ‘What an accomplished little liar you are,’ Seth said, kissing her cheek so she’d know he didn’t mind.

  ‘I prefer to call it bending the truth to save my skin,’ Emma told him. She’d had to do it often in the past and she hoped this would be the last time she’d ever have to do it. ‘It probably won’t be very long before the Reverend Thomson comes calling at Mulberry House wanting a donation for some good cause or other.’

  ‘And he’ll leave empty-handed?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.’ Emma shivered. Even though her dress was lined with winceyette and was high-necked and long-sleeved, it was doing nothing to keep out the cold. Her coat was draped over a headstone. ‘If it’s for orphaned children then I probably will donate something, but if it’s for vicars down on their luck then he’ll get shown the door.’ Emma giggled again. ‘Now, start practising your smile.’

  But Seth wasn’t smiling.

  ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you want to marry me any more?’ Emma felt a frisson of fear ripple up her spine that Seth might be changing his mind, that she’d gone too far with this subterfuge. She twisted the wedding band Seth had bought her only that morning around her finger.

  ‘Of course I do. And I’ve also bought you this.’

  Seth took a ring from the pocket of his suit jacket.

  The sight of it made Emma gasp. A quartered box of diamonds set diagonally on the shaft. Her mother had owned one exactly like it, but it had been missing from her finger when her body had been found.