Emma: There's No Turning Back Read online

  ‘So we sit and wait?’ Olly said. ‘And while we wait we tie the bugger up?’

  ‘We do,’ Seth agreed. He turned to Emma. ‘Go on up to bed, sweetheart. There’s nothing you can do here.’ He folded Emma in his arms and hugged her. He kissed the top of her head. ‘Try and sleep.’

  Her tears came then, large and wet and warm, sliding down her cheeks. Seth wasn’t like his pa and brothers at all. How could she have thought he was going to do away with Miles somehow?

  He was protecting her.

  ‘I think we should have insisted that the authorities guard us better, Seth. I know we saw two constables walking up and down – and one of them was smoking, for goodness’ sake, like he was on a day out! – for a couple of days after you reported Miles had been seen. But they soon gave up and went back to the warmth of the stove in the police station, didn’t they?’ Emma said the next morning.

  Gosh, but she was cross, and rightly so, Seth thought.

  ‘And I still think that it wouldn’t have made much difference. Miles had an axe to grind, a score he thought needed settling, and he’d have found me somehow,’ Seth told her. ‘And more than likely before the authorities found him.’

  ‘It was me he had a score to settle with,’ Emma said. ‘Mrs Drew told me he’d said that. We all know Matthew Caunter was responsible for your pa and brothers going to prison and I suppose, what with me having been Matthew’s housekeeper and …’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Seth interrupted. He didn’t want to be reminded of how Emma had shared Shingle Cottage for a while with Caunter. ‘It was drink talking. Nothing else.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Emma said. ‘Anyway, he’s locked up again now. We can relax.’

  In the end it had been way after breakfast time – nearly nine o’clock – before Sergeant Emms had turned up with two constables to take Miles away. Thank goodness Seth had thought to send Emma on up to bed because when Miles had woken to find himself trussed up he’d sworn and cussed. When Seth had said, no, he couldn’t use the privy, Miles had done his business there and then in his trousers – and what a stink that had been! But Seth hadn’t been able to risk Miles escaping through the privy window, however well he and Olly might have been on guard.

  ‘Will you be all right if I leave now?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Emma said. ‘I’m made of strong stuff.’

  ‘As the back of Miles’s head is probably finding out right now,’ Seth said.

  ‘He won’t press charges, will he?’ Emma said.

  ‘I shouldn’t think for one minute he’d be allowed to. But I do need to go now. The wind’s dropped and I want to see the crabbers out. And then—’ Seth only just stopped himself in time from saying, ‘I have to go to the bank to get money to send to Caroline.’

  Baby Rose had been ill. Colic had turned to gastroenteritis. Caroline had written asking for £30 to pay the doctor’s fee. He thought £30 was a bit steep, but what could he do? He had to give Caroline the benefit of the doubt. He had a feeling, though, there would be other letters demanding money for yet more ‘emergencies’ and, possibly, on a regular basis. He wished now he’d had the foresight to ask Caroline to send letters to him via his solicitor. But the deed had been done – Rose’s welfare had been uppermost in his mind when he’d given Caroline his new address.

  As he and Olly had sat through the night waiting for Miles to wake he’d almost confided in him about Caroline. And Rose. He knew, if he told Olly, it would go no further. But the fewer people who knew, the better. For now at least. He wanted Emma to be the first to know about Rose.

  ‘And then what?’ Emma said. ‘Goodness, but you were miles away there. Whatever were you thinking?’

  ‘How lucky I am to have you,’ Seth said, quickly – the truth, of course, but not the true answer to her question. He was going to have to tell her about Rose’s existence soon. But when? Poor girl she was having enough to cope with.

  For the next two days, Emma was busier than she’d ever dreamed she could be with her business, glad that pressure of work had pushed Miles’s visit, and his re-capture, to the back of her mind. By some unspoken agreement neither she nor Seth mentioned that night.

  Word of her baking had spread from hotelier to hotelier and she could barely keep up with orders. Often she would slip over to the bakery after supper to prepare pastry ready for baking in the morning, or to mix a filling in readiness for the next day. She had a mini mountain of mincemeat, heady with brandy and spices, maturing nicely in an old washbowl.

  But she was going to have to take on someone to help her soon. Ruby perhaps? Emma had worked with Ruby at Nase Head House and, from the very first day, they had been friends. Matthew Caunter had got Emma the position working for Mr Smythe, before he left for America with his wife, after seeing Reuben, Carter and Miles Jago punished for their crimes.

  When Mr Smythe’s French wife died, Emma had been asked to care for baby Isabelle – a step up the work ladder for her. But still she and Ruby had been friends, with no jealousy between them, even when Emma had been given a room to herself and didn’t have to share as the other maids had.

  But since the night Rupert Smythe had ordered her to leave his premises – the night Carter Jago had been hanged – Emma hadn’t seen Ruby at all.

  She still got a frisson of discomfort remembering that night – how everyone had been dressed up in their finest and the solicitor had come in, giving everyone the news that Carter Jago had been hanged earlier that day. The happy atmosphere had been shattered. Emma had fought Seth’s corner, saying how he was nothing like his pa and his brothers at all, and Mr Smythe had said if that was what Emma thought then she’d better go to him – and never come back.

  So she’d gone. But since that night she’d not seen Ruby. Not anywhere. Her guess was that Ruby was now busier than ever looking after little Isabelle and trying to keep the Smythe twins, Archie and Sidney, in order. At least Emma hoped that was the reason, and that it wasn’t because Ruby didn’t want her for a friend anymore, because if she didn’t then it would make things difficult for her with her employer.

  Ideally, Emma would have liked to have been able to walk up the drive to Nase Head House and ask to speak to Ruby, so she’d know one way or another what was what between her and her one-time friend. But seeing as Seth had been barred from the hotel because of his father’s and his brothers’ bad reputations, she knew that she wouldn’t be welcome there either. A letter. She’d have to write a letter to Ruby. Ruby would find someone to read it to her, Emma knew that. She would spare an hour to meet up with her friend, however busy she was.

  Seth was busy, too. His boats were bringing in good catches and, most days, he was either unloading them, or at the fish quay ensuring he got a good price for them. But he always managed to find an hour to go for a pint of ale with Olly to keep the friendship going.

  After lunch earlier that day, he’d rushed off to the Post Office, saying he had to catch the afternoon post. He seemed to be visiting the Post Office rather a lot lately. Something to do with his pa’s death probably – there had been lots of correspondence from Exeter gaol over that.

  Emma picked up her pen, dipped it in the ink. She had a letter she wanted to get in the afternoon post, too.

  Mulberry House

  December 20th 1911

  Dear Ruby,

  You’ll be surprised hearing from me, no doubt. Maybe you’ve heard that I’ve married Seth Jago? I really love him, but I think you guessed as much a time or two when I worked at Nase Head House!

  I did spend an indecent amount of time staring across at where he lived, didn’t I?

  I expect you’re wondering why I’m writing to you. The fact is, I miss your cheery chatter and hope you are well. How are the children? I miss them, too. Could we meet? Perhaps we could take tea together in Lily’s Tea Rooms tomorrow afternoon? Or you could come to Mulberry House? Anyway, Ruby, do let me know.

  With fond affection,

  Emma

  P.S
. I have a Christmas present for you, although that’s not a bribe for you to come and meet me!

  There, that was enough for now. She would mention the possibility of Ruby working for her when they met. If she hurried she’d get to the Post Office in time to post her letter before they closed for lunch, and with luck she’d have a reply from Ruby by the third post.

  ‘Perhaps we could take tea together in Lily’s Tea Rooms tomorrow afternoon!’ Ruby affected a mock-posh accent, repeating what Emma had said in her letter. ‘I got Tom to read it to me three times, and now I’ve learned it off by ’eart! “Lily’s Tea Rooms tomorrow afternoon”.’ She tipped her head from side to side with each word and jiggled on her chair. ‘Just ’ark at you, Emma Jago!’

  ‘How else could I have put it?’ Emma asked. ‘And I’m not posh. I speak the same as I always did. And you got Tom to write a reply to say you’d come quick enough, I noticed.’ She smiled at her friend – oh, how she’d missed her, she realised now.

  ‘Of course I did!’

  And now here they were the very next day, sitting at a table in Lily’s Tea Rooms, the two-tiered cake stand just groaning with cakes between them. Emma wished she’d asked Ruby to meet her long before now.

  Ruby helped herself to a meringue, licking the cream from around the edge before she put it on her plate.

  ‘I’m not sure I should even be speakin’ to you, though,’ she said. ‘Seein’ as you didn’t invite me to your weddin’.’

  Ruby tried to look mock-outraged, but it was obvious from the grin that kept creasing up her face that she was as pleased to see Emma as Emma was to see her.

  ‘We didn’t invite anyone,’ Emma said. ‘The lady who does the flowers was one witness and the verger was the other.’ How easily that lie came to her. If she was asked for names, she knew she could make something up just as quickly.

  ‘Where?’ Ruby asked.

  Now that did throw Emma off kilter more than a bit. She hadn’t thought to have a ready answer to that. St James’s at Distin? Was that the church and the place? Or was it St John’s at Banfield? They’d looked at both and chosen the one furthest from the town where they’d hired the photographer, but she couldn’t remember which was which now. What if Ruby recognised the church in the photograph? Or, for that matter, if anyone else who were to see the photograph recognised it?

  Her hesitation must have sparked a thought in Ruby because she stared Emma straight in the eye, then leaned across the table towards her. ‘I don’t believe you are married.’

  ‘I am so,’ Emma said, hoping the heat she felt inside her wasn’t spreading as a blush to her cheeks. ‘You can come and see my wedding photograph if you like.’

  Thank goodness she’d had the foresight to think of that.

  ‘Oh, Em, can I? What was your dress like? And your flowers? Tell me everythin’!’

  So while Ruby stuffed her face with cakes and drank cup after cup of hot, sweet tea, and oohed and aahed over everything, Emma told her what she wanted to know.

  ‘… and Seth had a deep red rose in his buttonhole,’ Emma finished.

  ‘And I’m glad he married you and not that Mrs Prentiss. Second-’and goods and all that ’er would’ve been. ’Er mother is up at Nase Head House dinin’ all the time with ’er ’usband and she’s forever brayin’, like some race’orse eager fer the off, now the news of you and Seth bein’ married is doin’ the rounds. You should ’ear ’er! – “Caroline’s moving in a much better set now. In Plymouth. She goes out sailing quite a lot. I’m glad she’s done better for herself than getting mixed up with those Jago criminals.” And loads of other muck-’eap stuff like that.’

  ‘Criminals? Seth’s not a criminal.’

  ‘I know that and you know that, but you’d be stupid to think that others don’t. But if it makes you feel better, when I dropped the slice of tart Mrs-up-her-own-backside Maunder ’ad asked fer, I put it back on the plate and served it – bits of muck off the floor an’ all.’

  ‘Ruby, you shouldn’t have done that!’ But now the subject of tarts had been raised she seized her moment. ‘How would you like to come and make tarts for me? I showed you how to make them when I was at Nase Head House and you were making them well enough. No dropping them and then serving them up though!’

  ‘Work fer you? But where would I live? Not with you that’s fer sure. I don’t want to be playin’ gooseberry to you two lovebirds.’

  Emma pressed her lips together, trying not to smile too broadly. She and Seth were like a couple of lovebirds, and none too quiet with it either most nights.

  ‘I expect Seth would let you rent one of his cottages.’

  ‘Rent? I couldn’t afford rent. You’re gettin’ a false idea of what’s what, you are, now you’ve moved up in the world. You’d have to pay me a whole lot more’n Mr Smythe’s payin’ me, and provide a roof over my ’ead.’

  ‘We could talk about pay, Ruby. I wouldn’t want you to lose out.’

  ‘I know you wouldn’t. But the truth is, I don’t do so much cookin’ these days, Em. I’m with the children mostly. It’s a tragedy their ma went and died and for their sakes I wish she ’adn’t. But if Mr Smythe marries that ’orseface, Joanna Gillet, then I’ll be lookin’ after ’em all the time.’

  ‘Doesn’t she like them, then?’

  ‘Like them? You should ’ave seen the fuss she made about brushin’ off somethin’ that wasn’t even there when little Belle touched the fancy frills on ’er jacket! Anyone would ’ave thought Belle had been sick, or worse, when all she’d done was touch those flippin’ frills with a clean finger. I know it was clean ’cos I’d only just took a bit of wet muslin to ’er ’ands.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Emma said. ‘It doesn’t bode well, does it? What about the French lessons for Archie and Sidney? Has Mr Smythe got anyone in to do that since I left?’

  ‘One young man came, a Frenchman from Paris ’e was, but ’e soon got kicked out again. ’Elped himself to brandy and the like. Those boys are goin’ to ferget all you ever taught them in a minute. I give ’em the books in French from Mr Smythe’s drawin’ room to read, but I don’t understand a word they say when they’re readin’ out – could be anythin’. Could be wrong. Could be rude. I don’t know.’

  Emma smiled at the ‘rude’. Yes, there were a few books in there which she wouldn’t want Archie and Sidney to be reading, had she still been working at Nase Head House.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ruby said, ‘this is supposed to be my afternoon off and ’ere I am bein’ made to talk about work!’ She’d finished her meringue and had just taken a Viennese finger. She broke it in two. ‘Eurgh. It’s a bit soggy. Not up to your standards, Em, if I may say so.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  Emma was yet to eat anything, but the truth was she didn’t think she’d be able to stomach any of it. She reached for a slice of sponge, but the filling looked dried out. She pushed it to the edge of her plate.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Ruby asked. ‘You’re not up the duff, are you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’ve hardly been married five minutes. I haven’t had time to get pregnant yet.’

  ‘You’re the silly one if you think that, Em. It only takes …’ Ruby clicked her fingers.

  ‘I want to establish my business first. And learn to drive the car.’

  Now where had that come from? The thought hadn’t even occurred to her before but now it had, well why not? She’d ask Seth to teach her.

  ‘You’re not turnin’ into one of those suffergets, are you?’

  ‘Suffragettes, Ruby. It’s suffragettes.’

  ‘Well, whatever the fancy word is, you know what I mean. There was a big rally up in London last month, so I guessed by the pictures in Mr Smythe’s newspaper. Some sufferget with a title was in court, so Mr Bell said when ’e caught me riflin’ through the pages. Imagine! A woman in court! In ’andcuffs an’ all. Whatever was she thinkin’ of? No man’ll want ’er now, silly biddy.’

  ‘I know. I read it too. Lad
y Constance Lytton. And someone called Christabel Pankhurst.’

  ‘Aw, gawd, you are turnin’ into one of them if you know their names.’

  ‘I’m not, Ruby, honestly, although I do think men have too much of things their way a lot of the time. Now, we’re not here to argue. If I can’t persuade you to come and work for me, will you at least come and see me sometimes?’

  Emma knew she’d have to try and get someone to work for her, if only a couple of days a week. She’d put a notice in the newsagent’s window on the way home. Someone would be glad of the regular money without a doubt.

  ‘Of course I’ll come and see you. And I’m sorry I ain’t been before. I’m ashamed now that I kept away to save my own skin with Mr Smythe. Maybe them suffergets have got a point. I tell you what I could do – I could come on my ’alf-day and ’elp. I’ve got nothin’ else to do, ’cept darn stockins. ’Ow would that be?’

  ‘That would be lovely, Ruby. Really lovely. We’ll get twice as much work done in half the time.’

  ‘If we don’t natter too much!’ Ruby reached for Emma’s hand, gave it a squeeze. ‘And I am grateful for my lovely present.’ Ruby tapped the gift-wrapped parcel on the table. ‘I feel awful now I ’aven’t got you anythin’.’

  ‘I don’t want anything, Ruby. I don’t want you spending what little you earn on me anyway. Coming to meet me is present enough.’

  ‘Oh!’ Ruby said, clapping a hand to her mouth. ‘I tell a lie. I ’ave got somethin’ fer you.’ She scrabbled about in her handbag and brought out a rather crumpled letter. ‘This is fer you. I were polishin’ the desk and Mr Bell was about to throw it in the wastepaper basket and I said, “Oi, you can’t go throwin’ people’s letters away”, and ’e said ’e could, seein’ as it was for you and you weren’t at Nase Head House no more. I took it out again when ’e weren’t lookin’.’

  A letter? Who could it be from? Her papa’s cousins in Brittany perhaps? She’d written to André Le Goff to tell him about her papa’s death and had received no letter of condolence, so had assumed he wasn’t living at that address any more.