The Miller's Daughter

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Ya could do a lot worse than be like ya grandpa, Emma. He was an old rogue, but a lovable old rogue, if you know what I mean.’

  Emma laughed, a low infectious sound. ‘Oh, Luke, you say the nicest things to a girl. If only you were twenty years younger.’

  The old man grinned, showing black gaps between his yellowing teeth. ‘More like forty, lass.’ Then he winked broadly. ‘I were a bit of a lad in me time, an’ all. Me an’ ya dad got into a few scrapes together as young uns.’

  ‘Oh do tell, Luke,’ she teased him, knowing that not for one moment would he let out the secrets of their youth.

  He shook his head. ‘Nay, lass, ’tis more ’n me job’s worth.’

  Emma wagged her finger at him playfully. ‘Don’t you worry, Luke Robson. I’ll ask your Sarah next time I see her.’

  ‘Ya can ask, but she’ll not tell you, ’cos she don’t know.’

  ‘Oh, you.’ In mock anger, Emma shook her fist at him as he turned away to heave the sack of grain up the steps and into the mill. He was still chuckling to himself, safe in the belief that Emma could not learn anything about his youth, or about her father’s early years, save what he, Luke Robson, chose to tell her.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ she called.

  ‘Aye, bright and early, lass.’

  She stood watching him for a moment as he disappeared into the mill and she heard the jingle of the sack hoist chain as he hauled the last sack up to the bin floor. Then he would climb the three flights of narrow ladders to unload and tip the sack into its right container. Her gaze wandered lovingly over the black tapering shape towering above her. She listened to the gentle rattle of the revolving sails. To Emma, the sound was the heartbeat of the working mill. She lifted her head and felt the wind on her face. She loved it when it was good milling weather, even if it did mean her working day was even longer. To her it was an affront when her father was forced to start the engine in the nearby building and run the long, wide belt across the space between the shed and the mill. With the belt looped around the pulley wheel on the outside of the mill, the engine drove the pair of auxiliary stones. It was the only way they could keep the mill working when there was no wind strong enough to turn the sails, yet Emma hated it. But there was no need for it on a day like this when the wind blustered from the sea and sent the sails spinning sails faster and faster.

  Her work here done for the moment, Emma walked across the yard away from the mill. To her right was the granary and on her left, the tip of its roof only just beneath the sweep of the sails, was the engine house. Behind it and through a gap in the hedge was their orchard and beyond that, a small cottage belonging to Harry Forrest but occupied by Luke and Sarah Robson who both worked for him. Before her was their own house. On the ground floor was the bakery at the front, facing onto the village street. At the back was the bakehouse and in between the two was their kitchen, with bedrooms and the best parlour on the first floor.

  Three generations of Forrests had lived here in this house. The first Forrest, old Charlie, had seen his two sons, Charles and Harry, born in the front bedroom above the shop and had rejoiced in the knowledge that he had heirs to follow him. To old Charlie’s disappointment, his eldest son had no interest in the mill and had run away to sea at the age of thirteen or so. The ebullient man had shrugged his huge shoulders and forgiven his wayward offspring, for there was still Harry to give him grandsons.

  But that had not happened, for the only child to survive had been a girl, and now Emma Forrest was the only heir to old Charlie’s mill.

  Three

  It was the time of day she loved the best. Very early on a winter’s morning with the yard outside still in darkness, it was warm and cosy in the bakehouse. With her father across at the mill, and before Sarah came to open the shop, there was just Luke lighting and stoking the fire in the firebox at the side of the brick oven and Emma mixing the first batch of dough for fifty farmhouse loaves.

  ‘Tell me again,’ she coaxed. ‘Tell me about Grandpa Charlie?’

  And Luke needed no more persuasion.

  ‘Eighteen-fifty-two, your grandpa built this mill, Emma. With his own bare hands.’ Luke would spread his own hands, pitted with the long years of work. ‘He’d been apprenticed as a boy to a millwright and by the time he was in his twenties, what Charlie Forrest didn’t know about mills and milling weren’t worth knowing. It was his dream to have his own mill. Aye, and everybody laughed at him, an’ all.’

  ‘Why? Why did they laugh at him?’

  ‘Because they said it’d not catch the wind where he was building it, here, under the lee of the hill. It’s even lower than the church up yonder.’ Luke jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the church towering on the highest point in the village that clustered on a gently sloping hill which the history books said had been constructed by the Romans as a lookout across the North Sea. ‘They told him he should have built it on top of the rise, but Ben Morgan had already built his mill there years before.’ Luke laughed again. ‘And old Ben wasn’t too pleased about this young feller and his plans for another mill in the village, so they say.’

  ‘Or out on the marsh,’ Emma murmured, joining in the tale she knew by heart.

  ‘Aye,’ Luke agreed, ‘it’d have caught the wind out there all right.’

  Beyond Marsh Thorpe the flat, fertile land stretched right to the sea.

  ‘So why . . .?’

  Luke tapped the side of his nose knowingly. ‘Ya grandpa might have been young, lass, but he was as sharp as a cartload o’ monkeys. He bought this bit of waste ground here for a song,’ Luke pointed down to the ground. ‘Nearly an acre, there is, but he knew what he could do with it and with the derelict house on it.’ The old man’s smile widened. ‘And isn’t that what we’re standing in right now, Emma? Oh, Charlie Forrest knew what he was doing, all right. He knew it’d make not only a home, but a bakehouse and bakery too.’

  ‘And so, he built his mill,’ Emma said, plunging her hands into the flour.

  ‘Brick by brick, timber by timber, it rose towards the sky.’ Luke raised his arms, becoming quite poetic as he warmed to his theme. ‘He put all the heavy machinery in on each floor as he went and he even built the sails himself. Fancy that, Emma. I remember me dad telling me that the whole village turned out to watch the day the sails were hoisted.’

  ‘But why,’ Emma asked, knowing the answer full well, but humouring Luke in his enjoyment of telling her the story yet again, ‘did the villagers call it “Forrest’s Folly”?’

  ‘Because he was a young feller, only in his twenties, reckoning he could build and run a mill all on his own, and because of where he was building it.’ Luke adjusted the damper at the side of the oven and laughed wheezily. ‘Allus an awk’ard old beggar, ya grandpa were. Liked to do what people least expected him to do.’ Luke’s eyes would mist over. ‘But he were a grand chap. He knew what he were doin’ all right and there weren’t a finer craftsman for miles around. “This mill will last generations,” he used to say. “It’ll pass to my son and my son’s son and on and on down the generations. There’ll always be a Forrest at Forrest’s Mill.”’ Here Luke would stop suddenly, realizing he had got carried away in his tale-telling and was touching on a subject that was like an open wound in the present generation of the Forrest family.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Emma smiled gently and touched the old man’s arm. ‘Even Grandpa Charlie couldn’t play God.’

  ‘And when he’d finished building his mill, do you know what they say old Charlie did, Emma? He climbed up on to the gallery – there was one in them days, running all the way round the outside of the mill just above the windows of the meal floor – and he caught hold of the end of one of the sails and he went full circle round on the end of it.’ Luke swept his arm in a wide arc to demonstrate. ‘By, he were a daredevil, was old Charlie.’ He gave a rasping bark of laughter. ‘He tried to get me an’ ya dad to do the same thing when we finished our apprenticeship, b
ut we weren’t ’aving none of it. I’ve never ’ad much of a head for heights. But old Charlie . . .’ Luke was shaking his head again.

  Emma frowned. ‘You know I can vaguely remember there being a gallery.’ Her memories were hazy, clouded by that awful day when she had seen her grandpa fall from the mill. Even when she deliberately tried to recall it, there was always something just out of reach of her consciousness.

  ‘Oh aye, it was taken down after your grandpa got killed. That’s how he got on to the sails, y’know? Off the gallery. That’s what it was there for, for doing repairs to the sails an’ that, but afterwards, well, ya dad had it removed.’

  ‘Why – why was Grandpa up there that day? At his age?’ Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean he was trying to go round on the end of a sail then?’

  ‘No, no. He’d gone up to do some repairs,’ Luke said quickly. ‘Old Charlie never did accept that he was getting on a bit. Silly old fool thought he could carry on just like when he was young.’

  Emma shuddered, trying to blot out the dreadful pictures in her mind, but they persisted. Her grandfather had his arm about her and was saying something to her, pointing up towards the mill. Then he had moved away from her. The picture blurred and her next memory was of him climbing up one of the sails. He had turned to look down at her standing in the yard, far below him and then . . . Emma swept her hand across her eyes trying to erase the terrible sight of old Charlie Forrest falling, arms flailing the air, down, down to the yard below. Still she could hear the awful thud as his body hit the ground. Then she could remember no more.

  ‘I’ll tell you summat, though,’ Luke was saying dragging her mercifully back to the present. ‘Whatever ya dad ses, I reckon old Charlie would have been proud of you. You’re a handsome lass.’

  Emma made no reply. It was not quite the compliment she would have liked, yet she knew Luke intended it to be one.

  ‘And you’ve a lot of his spirit in you, Emma. I often see flashes of it.’

  ‘Me? Spirit? Oh, Luke, come on.’ Now she did laugh. ‘I’m the most obedient of daughters.’

  Luke shook his head. ‘That’s nothing to do with being spirited. Ya can still “honour thy father” and yet have a will of ya own.’

  ‘Just so long as it’s the same as dad’s will, eh?’ Emma murmured, though more to herself than to Luke. She was thoughtful now, surprised to hear that Luke, shrewd and wise as he was, had already seen something in her that she was only just beginning to recognize for herself. That in her was a spark of rebellion, a growing determination to lead her own life, to make things happen the way she wanted.

  ‘Ya still young, lass,’ Luke was saying, ‘but your time will come, Emma. I can see it in those lovely eyes of yours. Ya might be tied to this mill by tradition and by your father’s wishes at the moment, but ya’ll never be a slave to any man.’ Luke laughed wheezily. ‘There’s too much of old Charlie’s blood running in your veins for that to happen.’

  The door opened and the icy cold of the November morning blew into the bakehouse.

  ‘Time to stand yapping all day, ’ave yer?’ Harry Forrest demanded of Luke. ‘I need you across at the mill.’ His glance swivelled towards Emma. ‘And where’s me breakfast?’

  Unhurriedly, Luke started setting the bread tins out. ‘You go, lass, I’ll finish here.’

  ‘Thank you, Luke,’ she smiled at him. ‘Breakfast will be ten minutes, Father.’ She turned and went through into the kitchen, ignoring Harry Forrest’s grunt of annoyance.

  Later in the day, when she had finished her work in the bakehouse and went through to the shop at the front, her mind was still filled with thoughts of the past which Luke’s words had evoked. Of course, she had her grandfather’s blood coursing through her veins and maybe she was more like him than she had realized. But Charlie Forrest was a legend. Could she really live up to the tales Luke told about him?

  I just hope old Luke is right, Emma thought, because if I’m going to marry Jamie Metcalfe then there is going to be a real battle ahead.

  ‘There you are,’ Sarah Robson’s cheerful voice greeted her. ‘Are you free to tek over now, Emma? I’ll have to go and get Luke’s tea ready in a few minutes. By the way, we’ve no cottage loaves left and I must remember to bring some more honey across tomorrow.’

  Emma yawned and drew the back of her hand across her forehead. ‘I’ll do extra in tomorrow morning’s second batch.’

  ‘We need more scones an’ all,’ Sarah said.

  ‘I’ll do them along with the cakes after the first two batches of loaves,’ Emma nodded. ‘As the oven cools.’

  She glanced up at the ceiling as they both heard the sound of Harry Forrest moving about in the living quarters above. ‘I’d better make a start on Father’s tea, too,’ she murmured. ‘I expect he’ll be working late tonight if this wind holds.’

  She heard Sarah’s sniff. ‘Shouldn’t bother. I reckon he’s on his way out.’

  Emma’s eyes widened. ‘Out? Out where?’ Her father rarely left the mill and then perhaps only on a market day. It was unheard of, at this time on a Wednesday evening, that he should be upstairs changing from his working clothes to go out and on a day when the wind still blew strongly in the late afternoon. It was the lot of the miller that he worked at any time of the day or night when the wind demanded.

  ‘Search me,’ Sarah shrugged. Emma eyed her keenly. The woman turned away, but not before Emma had seen the smile twitching at the corner of Sarah’s mouth.

  ‘Sarah?’ she began warningly, ‘You know something.’ At that moment Harry Forrest’s heavy boots sounded on the stairs and Sarah bustled away to busy herself wiping the crumbs from the shelves behind the counter ready for the fresh bread to be placed there the next morning.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and shut and Emma heard him cross the kitchen to leave by the door leading into the yard. Intrigued, she left the shop and went to look out of the kitchen window. Now she could see that the mill’s five sails were motionless, parked in the position the miller always left them at the end of his working day. Leaning against the deep white sink beneath the window, Emma saw her father standing outside the back door. He was dressed in his brown Sunday suit, the toecaps of his boots shone and he was pulling on his best cap.

  ‘He’s even shaved,’ she murmured. Normally, Harry Forrest shaved once a week on a Sunday morning in readiness for attending chapel, the rest of the week his face bore a peppered stubble. His features were thin. His nose had a slight bump in the middle that gave it a hooked appearance and his grey eyes were sharp. Too sharp sometimes, Emma thought, for they seemed to miss nothing.

  She saw him cross the yard and step into the road, pulling the gate shut behind him. Overcome with curiosity, Emma went out of the back door and towards the gate too. From across the road came the clatter of buckets as workmen swilled down the cobblestones of the cattle market after a busy day. Their voices echoed through the gathering dusk and the pungent, sweet–sour farmyard smells drifted across to her. But, leaning on the gate, Emma’s attention was on Harry Forrest.

  ‘Now just where are you going, Father?’ she asked aloud as she watched him walk up the incline of the main road which curved past the mill and through the village. He passed the market place without even glancing to his right and disappeared round the corner towards the church and out of her sight.

  From behind her came Luke’s wheezing laughter. ‘Off to see the Merry Widow, lass. That’s where ya dad’s off.’

  Emma turned swiftly, but Luke was walking away, his hobnailed boots echoing on the yard. She could hear him chuckling to himself. ‘There’s still a bit of old Charlie in Harry after all.’

  ‘Luke . . .?’ she began, but Luke only waved his hand in the air without turning round and continued his way towards the gap in the hedge that led through the orchard, past the three bee hives and towards his own cottage. ‘Harry Forrest can go gallivanting if he likes,’ she heard him chuckle. ‘But I’m off ’ome to put me feet up
.’

  Her father did not return until after midnight.

  Lying awake in the darkness, hearing the wind rattling the slates on the roof and rustling the tree outside her window, Emma waited, every muscle tensed, listening for the sound of his return. It was so totally unlike him. She could not remember a time when her father had acted like this. He should be here, working the mill, she thought crossly. The granary was bulging with sacks of grain waiting to be ground and Harry Forrest was wasting precious hours of a good milling wind.

  She heard the back door slam, the sound of his boots on the stairs and the creak of his bedroom door. She heard him moving about his room. Then the door opened once more and he stepped out on to the landing again. Throwing back the bed covers, Emma swung her feet to the cold floor and pattered across the room. Peering round the door, she saw her father going back down the stairs, a candle in his right hand to light the way.

  ‘Father? Are you all right? Where have you been till this hour?’

  Without pausing in his descent, he rasped, ‘That’s no concern of yours, m’girl. Go back to yar bed.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t argue.’ The gruff command had become an ill-tempered roar. Emma flinched and shut her door at once. Moments later, she twitched back the curtain to see the dim shape of her father crossing the yard towards the mill, determined not to miss any more of the good milling weather.

  But where, she thought with an insatiable curiosity, had he been?

  Four

  ‘Sarah, do you know where my father went last night?’

  ‘Now, Emma, how would I know a thing like that? ’Sides, it isn’t any of my business.’

  Emma glanced at her archly. She felt like saying ‘Since when has anything to do with a member of the Forrest family not been your business?’ Instead she said quietly, ‘But you do know, Sarah, don’t you?’ The woman avoided meeting Emma’s eyes and still said nothing.