Emily

by Valerie Wood

  Philip took her arm. ‘Come, Emily, let us go,’ he said.

  ‘Emily!’ Purnell said suddenly. ‘I knew someone called Emily once. She was a servant girl, but very beautiful, too beautiful to be a servant. But I hurt her.’ His eyes grew thoughtful and he scratched his chin. ‘She had my baby, but it was dead. Poor Emily! I wonder what happened to her.’

  Emily turned away. There was nothing more to be said. They reached the top of the corridor and she turned around. Purnell was still clutching the bars of the cell and watching their progress. He painted a forlorn figure of misery, she thought.

  As they reached the waiting cab, she looked back. It was dark now, but the moon, which lay half hidden behind cloud, cast a daunting, ominous shadow of the high walls over the courtyard. The only lights came from the top of the gatehouse in the north wall and the governor’s house, which overlooked all the buildings. She shivered and hoped that never again would she see the inside of this dreadful place.

  ‘Pay off his debts, Philip,’ she whispered as they drove away.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Pay off his debts on my behalf. I have money enough.’

  He gazed at her. ‘You can’t mean that? The man who brought you so low?’

  ‘Yes. There’s no sense in him being there. He can’t ever pay off the claims against him and he’ll die in there otherwise.’

  ‘Do you forgive him?’ he asked quietly.

  She hesitated. ‘No. I don’t think so. Nor will I ever forget. But I’m not afraid of him any more. He can’t harm me, he can only harm himself. I want to let him out and perhaps – just perhaps there’s a chance that he will redeem himself.’

  ‘All right,’ Philip agreed, though privately he thought that there was little hope of Purnell becoming a reformed character. But it was ironic, he meditated, that the one person who owed him least, should be the means of offering him that hope. ‘I’ll ask my lawyer to find out who his creditors are.’

  He leaned back against the cushions. ‘But not just yet. Purnell will have to wait just a little longer for his release. Tomorrow I have a surprise for you. Two surprises, in fact.’

  ‘Yes?’ She heaved a deep sigh. She felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘No, you must wait. But –’, he relented a little, ‘I will tell you some of it.’

  From the glow of the carriage lamp he saw the anticipation on her face. ‘Tomorrow’, he said, ‘I am taking you for a carriage ride into Holderness.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The morning was bright and there was just a hint of spring in the air as they came out of the hotel. Waiting on the forecourt was a spanking smartly painted four-wheeled chaise drawn by two horses and attended by a liveried coachman.

  ‘For us?’ Emily drew in a breath. ‘Oh, it’s so handsome. So very elegant,’ adding anxiously, ‘but expensive?’

  ‘Yes,’ Philip agreed, ‘indeed, but you must accustom yourself to a different lifestyle, Emily. I told you that you were a rich woman.’

  ‘But I can’t spend money in such a fashion,’ she whispered, not to be overheard by other hotel guests who were arriving or departing. ‘There will be nothing left if I do!’

  ‘You’re forgetting the seam,’ he urged. ‘Joe hasn’t even started yet. Once he gets all the equipment together and he can now that he’s free, there will be gold in plenty.’

  ‘But it’s not mine,’ she insisted. ‘It belongs to Joe and Mr Clavell.’

  ‘All right,’ he said grumpily, ‘if you want to give it all up, then do so. Perhaps I’ll stand a better chance of marrying you if you are penniless and only living in a poor cottage in Holderness?’ He sighed. ‘My mother will be so disappointed. I wrote and told her that I was trying to win the hand of an heiress.’ He shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘It’s what she has always wanted for me.’

  ‘You are so silly, Philip,’ she laughed. ‘I’m seeing an entirely different side to you from the one I thought I knew.’

  ‘That’s because, Miss Hawkins,’ he said with slight irony as he led her down the steps, ‘you are no longer conscious of our different situations. You are no longer a servant girl trying to do the right thing for her so-called betters. I haven’t changed. You are the one who has!’

  ‘If I have changed, it’s because of you,’ she murmured. ‘If you hadn’t taken orders on the Flying Swan, I dread to think what would have become of me.’

  He shook his head. That prospect didn’t bear thinking of. ‘Miss Hawkins,’ he continued in the formal manner as he handed her into the carriage, ‘I said yesterday that we must be careful of your reputation now that we are back in your home county, and to this end I took the decision that it would be more circumspect for you to have a female companion to accompany us.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said in dismay. ‘Is it really necessary?’ She had planned to tell him as they travelled of her childhood days in Holderness, of times by the river, of Sam and Granny Edwards. All those memories she knew would come flooding back now that she was home. The day will be spoiled now if there is a stranger with us.

  ‘It is indeed necessary.You must know that,’ he said severely, yet she caught a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. ‘I have made the arrangements so if you would excuse me for one moment?’

  She sat back against the cushions and waited whilst he ran up the steps and back into the hotel. If being a rich woman means that I have to be careful over everything I do or say, then I don’t think I shall like it, she pondered and even the velvet cushions and the rich smell of leather did not dispel her disappointment. Perhaps there is something to be said for being poor after all.

  She glanced out of the window and saw Philip appearing through the doors and ushering out a young woman. She sat forward. There was something familiar about the woman’s bearing, though she had her head lowered as she came down the steps and her bonnet obscured her face.

  She lifted her head and Emily took a deep, deep breath of joy, of recognition. ‘Ginny! Oh, Ginny!’

  Ginny jumped inside the carriage, not waiting for Philip’s help and wrapped her arms around Emily. ‘I’m so glad to see you back, Emily!’ Her eyes were bright with emotion. ‘I never gave up hope, not after that day I met Mr Linton. I knew, I could tell how he cared for you and I was certain he would bring you safely home.’

  Philip, who had been standing outside the carriage doors as their greetings were made, put his head inside. ‘Well, ladies! Shall we drive?’

  As they travelled out of Hull and into the countryside it seemed to Emily that there was so much to tell Ginny and yet so much that couldn’t yet be told. She remained silent over her journey to the London gaol and about the convict ship which took her to Australia. That was something which would be told only piece by piece; yet she shyly told her of Philip Linton’s concern, of Creek Farm and of Meg and of her brother Joe, but not of the gold, for she didn’t want to lose Ginny’s friendship now that she had wealth.

  ‘How ever did you find Ginny again, Philip? And how ever did you get Mrs Marshall to give you time off, Ginny?’

  Ginny glanced at Philip Linton, who said, ‘Oh, all the better people know Ginny, she was easy enough to track down.’ He smiled as he spoke and Emily felt that they were hiding something from her.

  ‘And I no longer work for Mrs Marshall,’ Ginny said. ‘I gave up on her just after your trial. I was sick of her questioning and wanting to know every detail. I had no trouble finding other employment. As Mr Linton said, everyone knows me. And’, she added, ‘I was given today off as it was such a special day!’

  They travelled in silence for a while until Emily, looking out of the window, exclaimed, ‘Oh! I know this road! We’re not very far from Elmswell Manor, where the Francises lived!’ She recognized the wooded area which surrounded the house and estate and sheltered it completely from the road. ‘I was so happy there until Miss Deborah became too attached to me and I had to leave. It was such a beautiful
house,’ she mused. ‘What I would give to see it again.’

  ‘Then let’s do that,’ Philip said and drew down the window and, putting his head out, gave instructions to the coachie.

  ‘Oh, but it will be all shut up, I expect, until Mrs Francis decides what to do with it.’ Then Emily became thoughtful. ‘What has happened to Miss Deborah, I wonder? Will Mr Francis have made provisions for her? I’m sure her mother won’t want her. Perhaps Mrs Brewer will look after her again, though she is getting too old to cope with Miss Deborah’s tantrums. Oh, she surely won’t be sent to an asylum like her brother! Mr Linton,’ she said formally, ‘I think I must enquire.’ She suddenly felt anxious. ‘I hope that someone is concerned for her, for her mother never was and neither was Hugo Purnell.’

  Philip nodded in an absent-minded way and she gave a small frown at his apparent disinterest over her former young mistress.

  ‘And whilst we are here in the district I must enquire about Sam.’ She gave a sudden smile of happiness. ‘He will be so surprised and he won’t recognize me! I was not quite fourteen when I left Granny Edwards’s cottage.’ She gazed out at the familiar landscape. ‘So much has happened,’ she said softly. ‘I feel as if I have packed a lifetime into just a few short years.’

  ‘So you have, Emily.’ He roused himself and, she thought, he is listening to me after all. ‘But there is still so much of life ahead of you.’

  Ginny looked discreetly out of the window as Emily said softly, ‘What kind of life is ahead of me? I seem to have forgotten who I am.’

  ‘I know who you are, Emily.’ He gazed at her earnestly as he spoke, almost forgetting Ginny’s presence. ‘You can always ask me – or your friends.’

  I am so afraid, she thought. I know I have his esteem, his love, but can I live up to his estimation of me? And I am so afraid that he would eventually regret his commitment towards me.

  She turned her gaze to the window. They had turned up the drive of Elmswell Manor, the long drive where once she had walked with her childhood friend, Jane, to enquire for a position as maid. They were approaching the gatehouse and as they drove through, they saw three figures standing by the entrance of the main house. A woman of middle years, dressed in black, a younger woman who was holding her hand, and behind them standing on the steps was a tall, well-built, fair-haired man.

  ‘There is someone here after all,’ she said nervously. ‘We’d better turn back! Perhaps someone else has bought the house. Tell them we have made a mistake, Philip, and lost our way. We don’t want anyone thinking we have come out of curiosity.’

  The coachman drew to a halt and jumped down to open the carriage door and fold down the step. Emily stared at Philip. ‘Why have we stopped? We can’t call without an invitation!’

  ‘You know the formalities so well, Emily! But we do have an invitation.’ Philip stepped out and gave her his hand to help her down. ‘At least I have. You don’t need one.’

  Whatever did he mean? She lifted her head and looked towards the group of people who were coming towards them. Mary Edwards! But how could it be? She hadn’t been to the house since she was a servant girl, and that’s Miss Deborah with her!

  ‘Oh, Mary!’ she cried. ‘I’m so pleased to see you at last.’ Emily put out her arms to embrace her and saw the tears of joy on Mary’s face.

  ‘Miss Deborah.’ Emily bobbed her knee, but to her surprise Deborah too put out her arms to hug her.

  ‘Emily,’ she said in an excited voice as if she had seen Emily only a few days before. ‘Such things as you wouldn’t believe. I have a puppy of my own! Sam bought it for me as a present. He’s going to show me how to train her. You know Sam, don’t you?’ She turned to include the tall man standing behind them. ‘He’s my brother. Not the one who I thought had died, but a new brother and he says he will always look after me!’

  Sam walked slowly towards her. ‘Hello, Em.’ He lowered his head and a flush touched his cheeks. ‘I’m right glad to see thee back.’

  At his homely words, Emily was overcome with emotion. ‘I’m glad to see you too, Sam,’ she choked. ‘I can’t tell you how much,’ and she put her arms around his rough tweed jacket and held him close and felt the memories come rushing back.

  ‘And, Emily,’ Deborah chatted on, as if determined to tell all, ‘you’ll never guess what else! Mary – who was my father’s best friend – is Sam’s mother!’

  Emily looked from one to another. So Mary and Sam had rediscovered each other after all. She saw the smile on Philip’s face and realized that he had known all the time. But why was Mary here, in the house where her name was never mentioned? Had she been employed to look after Miss Deborah? But who had engaged her? Not Mrs Francis!

  ‘Shall we go inside?’ Mary asked. ‘Luncheon is prepared, but first there are some others waiting to welcome you home, Emily.’

  She barely heard what Mary was saying, so overcome and confused was she, but she followed her and Deborah through the great heavy doors, and Philip, Sam and Ginny followed behind.

  In the coolness of the hall she could smell the fragrance of lilies and roses, which were set upon the gleaming polished table, and standing alongside it a line of servants was waiting. She gasped, not the servants she had worked with! Not Cook and Mrs Brewer! But yes, it was. Mrs Castle who had a dusting of flour on her cheek and Mrs Brewer, side by side. She grasped their hands and couldn’t stop the tears which coursed down her cheeks.

  ‘I’m so very happy to meet you again,’ she wept.

  Mrs Castle wiped her eyes on her apron. ‘Why bless you, Miss Emily. It’s good to have you back home again.’

  There were other servants whom she didn’t know, kitchen maids and housemaids, and rather strangely they bobbed their knee to her; but, she thought, they don’t know who I am and they have been well trained to greet guests of the house. She reached the end of the line and her tears had almost abated, until she saw that Ginny had positioned herself there and had a broad smile upon her face.

  ‘Welcome home, Emily.’ Ginny kissed her and put her arms around her.

  ‘I’m so confused.’ Emily looked at all the smiling faces. ‘I don’t understand. How did you know that I was coming?’

  Mary took her arm. ‘Come into the drawing room whilst Cook finishes luncheon and I’ll explain.’

  She led her through to the room which she remembered so well. The room where she had once laid the fire and dusted the furniture and plumped up the cushions on the chairs and sofas, and where now she was invited to sit as if she were an honoured guest.

  Deborah drew a stool near to Emily’s feet and sat hunched with her hands pressed together as if enclosing a secret. Sam stood hovering near the door and after clearing his throat said, ‘Deborah! Shall we take ’pup for a run before we have our dinner? Then you can bring her in to show Emily.’

  She jumped up immediately and ran towards him. ‘Oh, yes. You’d like that wouldn’t you, Emily?’

  Emily nodded agreement. How strange everything was. Sam and Miss Deborah being so easy with each other and Mary sitting relaxed opposite her in the house which belonged to her former lover and his wife. And where was Mrs Francis, anyway?

  ‘I was going to ask Mr Francis’s lawyer here today to speak to you, Emily, and explain what has happened,’ Mary said, ‘but then I decided that if I gave you prior knowledge, then he could explain the intricacies of the will later.’

  Emily looked from Mary to Philip. ‘But why should I wish to hear of Mr Francis’s will? It’s surely no concern of mine?’

  ‘Indeed it is, my dear. Of as much concern to you as it is to me and Sam, and I must say here how grateful I am to Mr Linton for bringing you home so swiftly and of being so considerate and understanding when I felt there was no-one I could turn to in my despair.’

  Philip inclined his head in response and Emily said softly to Mary, ‘I am so sorry about Mr Francis, he was such a kind gentleman. You must miss him so much.’

  ‘I do,’ she murmured sadly. ‘I shal
l never get over his loss, even though I have been offered so many compensations. But’, she added, putting on a brave smile, ‘let me tell you what has been happening.’ She took a breath. ‘Roger Francis has left his estate to his elder son – Samuel.’

  Emily gazed at her in astonishment. To Sam? But how could he look after it?

  ‘He realized, of course, that Samuel would not be able to attend to it himself. He’s a good worker on the land but has no knowledge, nor sadly the education or ability, to be able to run it. Roger decreed, therefore, that although the estate will be in Samuel’s name,’ Mary gave a sudden uplifting smile, ‘and he has acknowledged him as his elder son, that the finances and the running of the estate will be in the hands of Samuel’s mother, that’s me, and his cousin, Emily Hawkins.’

  Emily gasped. ‘But –’.

  ‘There is more,’ Mary added, ‘and it may take some time to explain. But tomorrow the lawyer will be here to inform you officially. My dear,’ she leaned towards Emily, ‘Roger has left you Elmswell Manor in its entirety, but there is a proviso, which is that Deborah should live here also if she should wish.’

  She broke off as she heard the sound of Deborah’s voice and the yapping of a puppy in the hall, then continued, ‘But Deborah has decided that she would rather live with me and Samuel in the gatehouse, which she describes as very sweet and cosy!’

  ‘Live with you and Sam?’ Emily could hardly take it all in. ‘But – what about Mrs Francis? What will she do?’

  Mary’s face hardened. ‘Mrs Francis does not want her daughter any more than she wanted her poor son, and Roger knew that. She has been left an annuity until her death, which will then expire and return to the estate. Deborah too has been left an annuity, which I, as her appointed guardian, will administer.’

  The door flew open and in romped a golden bundle of legs and fur which hurled itself with licking tongue at Emily and then at Mary, but barked at Philip, who remarked that Deborah would have a busy time training it. Sam caught it by the scruff of its neck and firmly put it out again, where they could hear it scampering up the stairs and along the corridors.