Emma: There's No Turning Back

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Caroline Prentiss, so Seth had said, had asked him for £1200 in exchange for allowing him to bring up Fleur. How could anyone sell their own daughter? And £1200? Why, you could buy a hotel for that! And £1200 was more than enough to live on for years without having to do a stroke of work, which was probably why Caroline Prentiss had asked for it. To Emma’s knowledge, the woman had never done a day’s work, either before her marriage or after she was widowed.

  Well, she might have to get used to it, mightn’t she? Women were starting to stand up for themselves, starting to want the same rights in society as men had and not before time. Although, in Emma’s opinion, they might be going the wrong way about it. She’d read in the paper only a couple of days ago that a group of suffragettes had raided the House of Commons. And ninety-six of them – ninety-six! – had been arrested. Like them, she’d stand firm about what she believed in and right at this moment she was going to fight to keep Shingle Cottage. But she’d do it by gentler means.

  ‘Seth, are you still awake?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you heard me. I said, which cottages are you going to sell? Because I’d prefer that Shingle Cottage isn’t one of them.’

  And certainly not so the proceeds can go to Caroline Prentiss she thought, but didn’t add.

  ‘Not Shingle Cottage, no. It’s too dear to you – and to me. And I’d never let Mrs Drew become homeless. But some will have to go.’

  ‘The one Mrs Phipps is in?’

  ‘Might as well. She rarely pays the rent anyway. I won’t sell the one her daughter, Mary, is in with her nippers, though. Mrs Phipps can move in with her.’

  ‘Oh, Seth, you’re too soft. Really you are. Mrs Phipps was horrible to me when Mama and Johnnie died, even though she took me in and told everyone what a wonderful job she was making of getting me better. But she wasn’t. She took the clothes I’d been wearing at Mama’s and Johnnie’s funeral because they were better than her own daughter’s clothes. When I asked for the red coat Mama had made me she said, “Coat? What coat? I ain’t seen no coat.” The liar. She was eating all the provisions Dr Shaw sent for me, and you know it. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if she doesn’t cause trouble once you get her evicted. Isn’t there anything else you can sell to raise the money?’

  ‘She might not be evicted, sweetheart, if the new buyer wants it to rent out. We’ll see. I’ve got some shares I could sell. My ma left them in trust for me in her will and I’m reluctant to part with them for sentiment’s sake, if nothing else. I could sell a boat. One of the trawlers. The price I’m asking for the whole fleet is a bit steep for most buyers, but one on its own might sell easily enough.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Emma said, thinking. There was so much she didn’t know about Seth still; he hadn’t mentioned his mother’s shares before, not that she thought for a moment that he was purposely keeping that a secret. ‘Have there been any enquiries for the fishing fleet?’

  ‘A few. But like I said, the asking price is beyond the means of any who’ve made enquiries so far.’

  ‘You really want to get out of fishing, don’t you?’ Emma said. And who could blame him? As long as he was fishing there would be those who remembered his father and brothers and their underhand and cruel ways.

  ‘Here, I do. But I’ll need to know I can provide for you and Fleur with whatever I do instead.’

  ‘Not forgetting my earnings,’ Emma reminded him. She was loving running a business, small as it was at the moment, and she knew she could never give up doing that.

  ‘Never forgetting that,’ Seth said. ‘Olly’s keen for me to work for him, but what he could pay is a pittance compared with what the boats bring in. And one thousand two hundred pounds, which is what—’

  ‘How soon does … she … want the money?’

  Emma didn’t want to hear Seth use her name. The sooner she was given the money and was on a boat and gone for good, couldn’t be soon enough for Emma.

  ‘Very soon. By the end of the week. I’m going to see about a covering loan.’

  ‘I’ve got nearly a hundred pounds in the bank. You can have that. And Mama’s amethyst necklace. The stone’s not valuable, but the chain is a good one. Eighteen carat gold,’ Emma said. ‘I’ll sell it if it will help. Go down to the pawnbrokers or something.’

  Emma had never been in a pawnbroker’s shop in her life and didn’t really understand the workings of the place, but she’d seen more than a few townspeople go in with things wrapped in paper bags or a sheet of newspaper, then come out again pocketing bank notes or a few coins.

  She began to wonder if she’d been rash offering to sell the amethyst necklace because in her heart she’d always treasured it and hoped one day to pass it on to her own daughter. Not to Fleur, but to a daughter of her own. She’d give something else as a keepsake for Fleur, one of Seth’s ma’s rings perhaps – although there were few enough of them left since Miles had sold them just before he was arrested along with Carter and their pa.

  ‘I wouldn’t want you to part with that,’ Seth said. ‘Ever.’

  ‘I would, though, if it would speed her on her way out of our lives.’

  Seth turned onto his side and Emma could see in the glow from the oil lamp on the bedside table that he was giving her a quizzical look, one eyebrow raised and a smile playing at the edges of his lips. Would she be kissing those lips tonight? Would she?

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘What’s that look for?’

  ‘I think, inside that pretty head of yours, you’re already at the pawnbrokers doing the deal, aren’t you?’

  ‘You know I am,’ Emma said. ‘You know me better than I know myself sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve studied you long enough,’ Seth said. ‘Close up. And from afar.’

  He began to smooth Emma’s shoulder, gently massaging it. Then he trailed his fingers up the side of her neck, so softly it was as though a butterfly was fluttering its wings against her skin.

  ‘When you thought I was doing things with Matthew that I shouldn’t have been?’ Emma said, and the second the words were out of her mouth she wished she hadn’t said them. Would Seth think she’d been thinking about Matthew while lying beside him in mentioning his name? ‘And I never would have, I hasten to add,’ she carried on quickly. ‘Is that what you mean? And when you thought I was going to become the second Mrs Smythe?’

  ‘Yes, then,’ Seth said. ‘I ought not to have jumped to conclusions because I know now you weren’t doing any of the things I imagined you were.’

  ‘Oh, Seth,’ Emma said, turning to snuggle into him. ‘And I ought not to have read things into your silences that weren’t there. I take some of the blame that you turned to … her, when you thought I was lost to you. It feels as though she’s here in the bed with us at the moment.’

  Seth laughed.‘You say the most outrageous things, sweetheart. The very thought!’

  He ran a hand through Emma’s hair, smoothing out the strands. How caring the gesture was, how loving. Emma snuggled up to him even closer.

  ‘I’ll go and see the bank manager in the morning, sweetheart. See about a bridging loan until I can sell something. Get this third person in our ménage à trois out of the picture.’

  ‘And in the meantime?’ Emma said, showering Seth with kisses – his nose, his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, doing her level best to banish Caroline Prentiss from her mind, from the bed.

  ‘In the meantime …’ Seth began, but Emma put her lips to his. She’d leave him in no doubt what she wanted in the meantime.

  And perhaps tonight would be the night she would conceive and her plan would be back in action, because the previous month her joy that she might be pregnant had been a false alarm.

  ‘Who was on the telephone so early?’ Emma said, strolling into the kitchen, warm and content, her body still glowing after a night of loving.

  Seth had leapt out of bed and rushed down to answer it. He hadn’t come back up again either – well, not to the bedroom he hadn’t, although Emma had
heard him running water into the basin in the bathroom.

  ‘Who?’ Seth said. He carried on sawing a thick slice of bread from a loaf, then cut another slice. ‘Er, Sergeant Emms. Some fool loosened the rope on one of my crabbers and it was drifting in the harbour. While he was talking to me Ned Narracott turned up and said he had taken a punt out and secured it again.’

  ‘Good. But who would have done such a thing?’ Emma asked.

  Seth shrugged. ‘I doubt we’ll ever know. Some drunk who thought it was just a bit of fun? Someone my father wronged with the smuggling, perhaps? Who knows?’ He spread butter liberally on the bread, then covered the butter thickly with blackberry and apple jam. ‘I’ve made tea. It’s in the pot.’

  Emma laughed. ‘My, but I think an early morning telephone call would be good around here every day.’ Just as Emma’s own papa had done, Seth tended to sit and wait while Emma prepared breakfast, or any meal for that matter.

  ‘Emma,’ Seth said sternly, not returning her good humour. ‘I think it might be best if Fleur stays in Shingle Cottage for a while. Until … you know … her mother’s safely on the Atlantic.’

  ‘But Mrs Drew’s cough?’ Emma protested. ‘She’s not well. Coughs are always worse at night when you lie down.’

  However upset she was at the fact that Fleur wouldn’t be sleeping under their roof for a few nights, it had been Mrs Drew and what was really wrong with her that had been uppermost in Emma’s mind. She knew that Mrs Drew’s cough wasn’t infectious because she’d been to see Dr Shaw and left money to pay any bills Mrs Drew might incur for treatment. And he’d told Emma that neither she nor Fleur were in danger of developing Mrs Drew’s cough, when she’d asked if they might be.

  ‘You’ve really come to love Fleur, haven’t you?’ Seth said, taking Emma’s hand.

  He lifted it to his lips, and Emma shuddered at the feel of his warm lips against her skin. It was all she could do not to whisk him upstairs. She was turning into a wanton hussy for sure. Not that Seth had any complaints. Sometimes their lips were red and raw from the kissing, and her body ached from the delicious writhing on the mattress which would need replacing soon it was getting that much wear. But she had work to do, and lots of it.

  ‘Yes. I have,’ Emma said a little huskily, pushing back her desire for Seth, because now wasn’t the time for such things. ‘Fleur has your eyes and it’s like looking at you when she smiles at me. I couldn’t bear to think of any child of yours being unloved and unwanted. And her mother didn’t want her, did she? Not really?’

  ‘Not at all. She threatened me with the court to begin with, but once we started talking money she soon forgot about that. All the same, I think it would be safest if Fleur stays with Mrs Drew at Shingle Cottage until I’ve got the cash for Caroline and she’s on that boat to America – without Fleur. I can’t be certain she won’t come back and snatch the child.’

  ‘Get her penny and her bun,’ Emma said quietly, not really wanting to even think that Caroline Prentiss would snatch Fleur from them, but having to face the fact that she might try. ‘Which boat?’

  ‘The Titanic. She’s going steerage, so she said, but no doubt she’ll have the best of everything once she gets to America with my money. She says she’s going to see if she can get into films.’

  ‘Films? You mean she wants to be a film star? Like Alma Taylor? Or Mary Pickford? They’re both so beautiful.’

  Emma and her mama had often gone down to the Roxy – or the flea-pit as her mama had always called it because didn’t she always come home covered in bites on her ankles? – but it had never occurred to Emma to want to be an actress tied to a railway line, which was all some of them seemed to do in the films she’d seen.

  Seth laughed, his body shaking against hers. ‘Sometimes, sweetheart, you convey your meaning by what you leave unsaid.’

  ‘Yes, well. She won’t be able to hold a candle to either of them, will she?’

  ‘I know. Laughable, isn’t it?’

  ‘In a way,’ Emma said. ‘But I’m scared, Seth. We shouldn’t be afraid to live our lives because of people like Caroline Prentiss and Miles threatening us. I’m nervous now when I’m on my own in the house in case Miles comes back. He’s escaped from prison once, he could do it again. And I’m even more scared Caroline will come looking for Fleur – after she’s got her money maybe.’

  ‘She won’t. If I have to put her on the ship myself, I’ll do it.’

  ‘You wouldn’t?’

  A ripple of fear made Emma’s shoulders judder. The Titanic. From what she’d read in the papers, it had been built in Belfast and was sailing from Southampton next month. If Seth went there to make sure Caroline got on the ship, and they had to put up at an hotel en route, what if she seduced him? He was a man, after all, and hadn’t Beattie Drew said that men have different urges and needs to women? Stronger ones? And she and Seth weren’t married, so if that did happen then it wasn’t as if she could divorce him for adultery.

  Oh! Emma put a hand to her forehead. Her life was becoming so tangled with the subterfuge of her sham marriage, and she was feeling giddy with images that she was struggling to get from her mind.

  ‘I would. Or get someone to do it for me. Olly perhaps?’

  ‘Yes,’ Emma said. ‘Ask Olly to make sure she goes up the gangplank. I wouldn’t want you, you know, to succumb …’

  ‘Don’t say “to Caroline’s charms”, sweetheart. That block of stone hasn’t got any.’

  ‘But she has given you a beautiful daughter.’ Emma put a hand to her ear, not that she needed help in hearing Fleur screaming for England upstairs. ‘Who at this moment is probably yelling her little lungs out because she’s wet and needs a change of clothes, and I’ll need to give Beattie Drew some money for Edward to go to Sarson’s for baby formula and …’

  Emma ran out of words. They just evaporated on her tongue. And she couldn’t have said them anyway, could she? That a few days without Fleur would be just what she needed, was what she’d been going to say. She could ask Seth if she could borrow the car and she’d go calling on hotels over in Torquay. There were so many more top-quality hotels over there – hotels where titled people stayed to take advantage of the milder climate and the good sea air.

  Mr Clarke at the Esplanade Hotel had told her that while his chef – and the chefs in many top hotels – were good enough at turning out excellent lunches and dinners, none of the ones he’d ever known made pastry and tarts, both sweet and savoury, as she did. She was being given an opportunity and she was going to make the most of it.

  ‘Three minutes, Seth, three minutes, then I’ll have Fleur ready to go.’

  As Seth drove down the hill with Fleur firmly secured with webbing bands on the seat beside him, he was hating himself for lying to Emma. It hadn’t been a scuppered boat that Sergeant Emms had telephoned him about. It was to inform him that Miles had killed a police officer while in custody, and then escaped. But how could he have told Emma that? He was thinking fast – make sure Fleur was safe first because she was the more vulnerable. Yes, he’d make one move at a time until he heard more from the police.

  Chapter Eight

  Emma missed Fleur more than she’d ever thought she would. The house had been eerily quiet at night without the snufflings and murmurings that Fleur made in her sleep coming from her nursery.

  But it had given Seth peace of mind that Fleur wasn’t at Mulberry House should Caroline Prentiss call – or send someone to take Fleur on her behalf – and Emma had been grateful for that.

  And it had given Emma and Seth hours and hours of delicious, uninterrupted lovemaking. ‘Make the most of it,’ was what Seth had said because once a child of their own arrived there’d be twice the possibility for interruption. Not that Emma was with child yet. Her monthly had been late just the once – and only the one day – and she could still feel the disappointment that had washed over her that she wasn’t going to have a baby after all. ‘Not for want of trying’ Seth always said, before s
uggesting they try again, and again.

  But now Fleur was back home because RMS Titanic had sailed with much waving of bunting and brass bands playing. The newspapers were full of photographs and reportage of the event and Emma and Seth were heaving huge sighs of relief. Olly had done as Seth had asked and been on the quay to wave the ship off at Southampton. He’d seen Caroline Prentiss, with his own eyes, walk up the gangplank. She hadn’t been alone, Olly had said. And he’d tapped his nose when he’d called round to give Emma and Seth this news.

  Well, I couldn’t care less who it was, could I? Emma had thought at the time. And she still thought it.

  ‘I’m glad you’re back, little one,’ Emma said. She leaned over and kissed Fleur’s forehead. She smelled faintly of lavender. ‘You’ve looked after her wonderfully, Mrs Drew.’

  ‘What else would a body do?’ said the older woman with a laugh. ‘And isn’t it time you dropped this Mrs Drew nonsense? It’s Beattie from now on. God only knows there’s few of my contemporaries left to call me that and it’s all Ma or Granny from my family, or Mrs Drew from the doctor.’

  ‘The doctor?’ Emma said.

  While Beattie Drew’s cough was nowhere near as bad as it had been around Christmas time, it was still there on occasion – deep and hacking for a few minutes until it subsided after a drink of water or the sucking of the coltsfoot rock that she swore was making it better.

  ‘Don’t you go botherin’ your head about me and the doctor. And don’t you go askin’ him again about me neither.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  Which wasn’t strictly true. Emma had been to see Dr Shaw and had left money in advance for anything Beattie might need, dropping into the conversation her worries for her friend. Dr Shaw had said he hoped Beattie had turned a corner, but if not he was going to send her to the county hospital for some tests. So far, to Emma’s knowledge, Beattie hadn’t been to Exeter for any tests.

  ‘Oh yes you did, my lady!’

  ‘I only left money for your consultations and your prescriptions. And any tests the doctor thinks you might need. Might.’