To Turn Full Circle

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Emma tried to speak but all that came out was a sob. So Seth turned her to face him, took her in his arms. He smelled of fish a little, but it didn’t bother Emma – quite the reverse. It was a smell from her past, a comforting smell. But she couldn’t always live there, could she? – in the past.

  ‘What will you do?’ she said between sobs into Seth’s knitted jumper. The rough fibres in it were tickling her cheek but she couldn’t pull away. Not yet.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The boats. They were crawling with men when I went past earlier.’

  Seth didn’t answer right away. Instead, he smoothed her hair with his hand, and she was glad Ruby had told her where the brushes were now. She hoped her hair didn’t smell of cooking, though.

  Loath as she was to move, Emma was forced to wriggle in Seth’s grasp because her feet were sinking into the soft, damp sand. Seth released his hold on her, but reached for her hand. And Emma placed hers in it. They began to walk.

  ‘There are men with families to consider,’ Seth said. ‘And they’re my responsibility now. I’ve been told at least one of the trawlers will be impounded to offset the cost of taxes unpaid on contraband goods if there’s a guilty verdict. The crabbers will still be able to be put to sea. I’ll make sure that they do. Thank goodness I’ve never wasted money. Pa always paid me well enough and I’ve saved most of it. So I’ve got adequate funds to pay the crew for a few weeks, at least.’

  They’d reached the place on the sand where they’d been sitting previously and Seth lowered Emma back down onto his jacket.

  ‘Won’t Carter and Miles continue to run things?’

  ‘Carter and Miles?’ Seth said, as though the names were alien to him.

  ‘Your brothers,’ Emma said, although she knew it was superfluous to say so.

  ‘Didn’t you see anything of what went on last night?’

  ‘Not much,’ Emma said. ‘I saw your pa arrested, but then Mr Smythe took me to a room where I spent the night.’

  ‘My brothers, Emma,’ Seth interrupted, ‘are both locked in cells at the police station. Miles is more than implicated in smuggling, and …’

  Seth dropped onto the sand beside Emma. He ran a finger gently over her scab and her bruises. Then he kissed her injuries. Very gently, a feather-light touch – as though a butterfly had thought about stopping and then changed its mind.

  ‘And Carter?’ Emma prompted.

  She felt Seth stiffen at his brother’s name.

  ‘Carter,’ he said, ‘is in it up to his neck, too.’

  Seth had never even seen a gaol before and now he was in one – seated on the opposite side of a small, dirty table to his father. A uniformed warder stood in the corner, arms folded. Listening – Seth knew the warder was listening.

  ‘Bail’s been refused. Can you believe that?’ Reuben Jago said, jutting his chin towards Seth.

  Seth leaned back, away from his father. ‘So I’ve been told.’

  ‘Come closer, I don’t want him hearing.’ Reuben Jago flicked his eyes in the direction of the warder.

  ‘I’ll hear you from here if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Hah!’ Reuben Jago hissed. ‘You always were difficult.’

  Seth pressed his lips together. If difficult meant not so malleable to his pa’s orders as his brothes were, then so be it.

  ‘Get on with it, Pa, what is it you don’t want the warder to hear?’

  ‘Thank God you had the sense to sign the transfer of deeds when I told you to,’ Reuben Jago hissed, sotto voce, at Seth.

  ‘And thank God I didn’t sign accounts I suspected you’d falsified,’ Seth said, only louder. Let the warder hear that.

  ‘What falsified accounts, son?’ his father said, speaking louder himself now. ‘News to me, falsified accounts. Who’s been at ’em? Lots of lies being bandied about here, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You know well enough what accounts I’m talking about, Pa. The ones I refused to sign.’

  ‘Be that as it may, I’ll be out of here soon, once that damn fool solicitor of mine does his job properly. Carter and Miles, too. Nothing’s proved yet – innocent until proven otherwise.’

  Seth scratched the back of his left calf. This place was giving him the creeps, with its peeling paint and where it wasn’t peeling, thick with dirt. It was making him feel lousy. He’d picked up a flea already, hadn’t he? He wasn’t going to visit again unless he really had to.

  ‘Plenty have talked once money came their way to loosen their tongues, so I’ve heard. People you and Carter and Miles did the dirty on.’

  ‘Hold your tongue! Have you no respect?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Oh, you think you can say what you like to me now, don’t you? Safe in the knowledge I can’t lay a finger on you with him,’ Reuben Jago jerked a thumb towards the warder, ‘hovering.’ He lowered his voice. ‘But you just wait until I get out. And when I do there’ll be the little matter of transferring the deeds back into my name. Your attitude to all this – ’ he went on, pointing to each wall in turn – ‘hasn’t pleased me one bit.’

  ‘You’re here by your own doing as far as I can tell. And as for transferring the deeds back into your name, we’ll see …’

  Reuben leapt to his feet. ‘Damned right we will!’

  ‘Sit, prisoner,’ the warder yelled.

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘Then I’ll help you.’ The warder raced forward, pushed Reuben back onto the chair.

  It was as if all the bravado went out of Seth’s pa. He looked a broken man, not one who usually did the pushing around and the bullying.

  ‘Did you push Ma down the cellar steps?’ Seth asked, surprising himself that he felt no anger, no hatred, just a cold indifference to his father.

  ‘Hold your tongue.’ Reuben leapt to his feet again, but again the warder pushed him back into his seat.

  ‘Going deaf, prisoner? I told you to sit. Didn’t you hear me?’

  ‘I heard.’ Reuben Jago spat a gobbet of phlegm onto the floor.

  ‘Time’s up, visitor,’ the warder said.

  Seth nodded. Rose from his seat. ‘For all your money, Pa, and your fine food, and your big house – mine now, of course,’ Seth said, ‘you’re nothing but a bully of a peasant.’

  And then Seth allowed himself to be escorted out the door, heard the key lock behind him. He’d had the last word for once. It was a good feeling and as he walked along the corridor behind the warder he experienced a strange sense of emotional freedom. He couldn’t wait to get back home.

  All the talk among the staff at Nase Head House was about the Jagos. Jimmy Dunn had come in with the news – goodness only knows where he’d got it from – that the Crown was keen to get a quick conviction so that the Jagos were taken out of their illegal operation as soon as possible.

  And they were talking about her, too, behind her back – Emma knew it – because more than a few times when she’d come into a room conversation that had been going on had died. The gardener must have spread the gossip that he’d been asked to take a letter from Emma to Seth Jago because word had got round that Emma and Seth were friends. Emma had been quizzed more than a few times about what she knew about the smuggling. But she always denied knowing anything – which was the truth. And she said little about Seth beyond, yes she and Seth were friends and that she knew nothing about what his father and brothers had been up to. And that was the truth of it because she hadn’t seen Seth since that time on Crystal Cove when she’d thrown the chocolate he’d given her in the sea – a good fortnight ago – because he was busy now, running the Jago fishing fleet.

  One or two had asked how she’d come to be linked with a Customs Officer but Emma always gave the same answer – she hadn’t known he was at the time.

  ‘What’r
e you looking at then, Emma Le Goff?’ Ruby said. ‘Lovesick doesn’t come into it the way you gawp out that window hoping for a glimpse of that Seth Jago.’

  Emma laughed. ‘As if I could see him from here. Anyway, who says I’m gawping at Seth?’

  ‘I says. You only ever look in the direction of the harbour. Even though there’s lovely things to see in other directions. Am I right?’

  ‘You are.’

  There was no denying it. Emma turned from the window of the dining-room where she was supposed to be helping Ruby lay the tables for lunch. Bored with nothing much to do, once the tarts Mr Smythe asked her to make each day were done, Emma was always more than happy to help her new friend. She’d asked Mr Smythe – at least three times – what her position in the hotel was and he had said each time that he was honouring his promise to Matthew to keep a roof over her head. He was, he told her, considering his options as regards a position for her and that he’d let her know when he’d come to a decision. Whatever that meant. Emma lived on tenterhooks, though, waiting for the moment when Mr Smythe might decide that one of those options was for her to leave. Or that he would tell her she’d have to get into a chambermaid’s uniform.

  She’d rather leave than wear such a frumpy uniform. Even though the thought of an uncertain future terrified her.

  For the moment, though, Emma’s way of ensuring she wasn’t asked to leave just yet was to make the best job she could of the crab tarts. The cook didn’t like it much, and he huffed and puffed and grumbled non-stop when she was in his kitchen. But there was nothing she could do about that – she had to do as she was asked by Mr Smythe. And the tartes tatin Mr Smythe loved so much – she made sure those were glistening and succulent and oozing with sweetness, thereby increasing her chances of being taken on as a cook. She hoped.

  The cook hated her for doing it, though – jealous, no doubt, that Mr Smythe had particularly asked her to make them. Well, she had to do something to make herself useful, didn’t she? The other chambermaid – Eve Grainger – glared at Emma as though she was a bit of dog dirt she’d found on the bottom of her shoe every time they met in passing. Emma had no idea why because she always smiled at the girl warmly enough. Jealousy, probably – because hadn’t her mama always said that the only reason a person is horrible to another is because they’re jealous? But with Ruby as her friend, Emma could ignore Eve Grainger.

  ‘Hey, Miss Daydream. Are you in ’ere with me, or in some flowery bower inside your ’ead with Seth Jago?’ Ruby laughed.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’ Emma asked, laughing with her. ‘To everyone here I mean? That I’m looking out for Seth? Not that I can be certain which tiny ant-like figure is him down there on the quayside.’

  Emma laid down a knife, straightened it. She closed her eyes for a second. In her mind’s eye she could see him exactly as he’d been the last time she’d seen him at Crystal Cove, feel his arms about her, and his kiss against her hair.

  ‘Probably it’s me more ’an most what notices, seeing as we’re together most,’ Ruby said. ‘Are you going to marry him?’

  ‘Marry him? I’m not sixteen yet.’

  ‘Two of my sisters got married at sixteen. With a babe apiece by their seventeenth birthdays. Married to older men the pair of ’em, and happy enough.’

  ‘Seth’s not old.’

  ‘Ha! My hunch is right. You’re mighty quick to his defence. You do want to marry him.’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Ruby,’ Emma snapped. ‘I said Seth’s … oh, forget it.’ Emma knew she was digging herself into a hole by continuing the conversation.

  ‘Well, my money’s on ’im asking you the second that day comes. Sending you a present an’ all. I’d marry a man like that tomorrow.’

  Yes, Seth had sent a parcel to Nase Head House for her: chocolate – honestly come by with English writing on it this time – and a set of hair brushes. New ones. He’d put a note in with the brushes saying he was sorry he didn’t have time to meet her at the moment and that he was sure Emma understood how things were for him. And he ended the note by saying that she was in his thoughts and he hoped she was comfortable at Nase Head House.

  Emma understood, of course she did. And he was in her thoughts as well. But marry? Did Emma want to marry? Yes, she knew she did one day. She wanted children of her own and her first son she would call Johnnie after her brother. But not yet. She needed to know what she was capable of, and to have a bit of money behind her before she married; have the safety net of savings. And possibly a place to call her own, not one small room in a hotel that Matthew Caunter had arranged for her to be in.

  ‘Just think of it, Em,’ Ruby said, her voice all dreamy. ‘Hilltop House.’ Ruby pointed out across the harbour to the hill on the other side. ‘You could live up there and be a lady …’

  ‘No!’ Emma said, leaping between Ruby and the window. ‘I am never, ever going to live in that house.’

  Ruby jumped back, startled at the vehemence of Emma’s words.

  ‘Well, best you get on and buff up that silver or lunch will be late and we’ll be thrown out, you and me both, for making it so. And then where would you go?’

  Where indeed? Emma wondered, as she gave each knife a brisk rub with a tea-towel before setting it in its precise position on the pristine damask cloth.

  ‘Emma! Emma!’ Ruby came rushing into Emma’s room in the tower. Her chubby face was troubled – her cheeks bright pink – and her eyes glistened with what Emma thought might be tears. ‘You’ve got to come. Mr Smythe …’

  ‘What’s happened?’ Emma said. Please, dear God, don’t let anything have happened to Seth. Or to Matthew. There was no one else in her life that Emma cared for – apart from Ruby and she was standing right in front of her, obviously alarmed about something, but well. She didn’t think she’d be able to bear it if something had happened to Seth or Matthew.

  ‘I’m not to say. Mr Smythe’s going to tell you. I was walking past the desk in the foyer, a load of clean sheets in my arms, when he took the call. I couldn’t help but realise what was wrong. Mr Smythe flopped onto the chair by the desk and I thought he was going to pass out. He’s in his office waiting for you. Oh, Emma …’

  ‘We’re wasting time, Ruby,’ Emma said.

  She ran a hand through her thick, wavy hair in a vague attempt to tidy it. No time to use one of the brushes Seth had sent her. Then she twisted her hair at the nape of her neck and secured it with a clasp as best she could. It would have to do for now. If Mr Smythe was in the kind of distress Ruby had said he was, then he was hardly likely to notice the state of her hair, was he? Then she checked the front of her blouse for stains and to see if the buttons were done up properly. They were.

  She ran from the room. She took the stairs two at a time, sliding her hand down the handrail as she went, even though she’d been told off for doing the same thing more than once. Not ladylike, Mr Smythe had said. Well, she wasn’t a lady yet. Still a girl.

  Skidding to a halt outside Mr Smythe’s office, Emma took a couple of deep breaths. Her heart was racing, wondering what it was Mr Smythe was going to tell her. She knocked lightly on the door, and it was opened at once by Mr Smythe himself.

  ‘Ah, Emma.’

  Mr Smythe always called her by her Christian name – something the rest of the staff didn’t go much on because they were always addressed by their surnames. But when she mentioned it to him he had said she was still a minor and he would address her as he saw fit.

  ‘You wanted me?’ Emma said.

  ‘Yes, yes. Come in.’

  He closed the door behind them.

  ‘Is it Seth? Matthew?’ Emma asked. She felt herself go cold, then instantly heat coursed through her veins again. The palms of her hands felt damp, clammy. As surreptitiously as she could she wiped them on the sides of her skirt.

  ‘Neither, Emma,’ Mr S
mythe said. ‘It’s my wife, Claudine. She died this morning. Our baby came a little early a month ago and my wife was slow to recover. She took an infection in her … in her …’ Mr Smythe seemed unable to go on. He looked at Emma as though he wasn’t sure who she was or why she was there.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said, not knowing what else to say. But her voice seemed to have brought him back to the present.

  ‘I should have gone back to our London home more. Two weekends wasn’t enough. I planned to. I telephoned, of course. I thought to be nursed at home would be a safer place for her than a hospital where she might have picked up all sorts of diseases, and now …’

  So that was why Mrs Smythe was still in London and not here.

  ‘I’m truly sorry,’ Emma said. ‘What can I do?’ And why are you telling me, she wanted to know. Why had she been chosen when, perhaps, Mr Bell on reception might have been a better recipient of such news, especially as he had come from London and might have known Mrs Smythe.

  ‘Claudine was …’ Mr Smythe’s voice was hoarse now and he cleared his throat, but seemed unable to go on.

  ‘Claudine?’ Emma said.

  Mr Smythe nodded, then dropped into a chair beside the window, put his head in his hands. His shoulders heaved up and down but he made no sound.

  To go to him or not?

  Slowly she walked towards the window. She reached out to touch Mr Smythe on the shoulder. How thin he seemed beneath his jacket. As though the sudden shock had made him smaller somehow.

  ‘I know what it’s like to lose someone you love,’ Emma said.

  Mr Smythe turned to look at her then, his eyes red-rimmed from crying. ‘Forgive me for my weakness.’

  ‘It’s not weak to feel emotion. I might have thought less of you had you not shown any.’

  Emma knew she was saying the right thing but it was painful to watch Mr Smythe in his terrible grief. She had enough of that of her own. It wrapped itself around her like the Liberty bodice her mama had made her wear when she was younger, itching and scratching and making her skin raw.