Emma

by Rosie Clarke

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Rosie Clarke

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sneak Preview of Emma’s War

  Copyright

  About the Book

  All she has is her reputation...

  When Emma Robinson discovers she is carrying Paul Greenslade’s child, there are harsh consequences after he disappears rather than marry a common shop-girl.

  Forced by her tyrannical father to marry Richard Gillows, Emma learns quickly that a jealous husband is a violent one. How can Emma escape the ties that bind her, to build a life for herself and her child?

  From the author of The Downstairs Maid

  (Note: previously published as The Ties That Bind by Linda Sole)

  About the Author

  Rosie Clarke was born in Swindon. Her family moved to Cambridgeshire when she was nine, but she left at the age of fifteen to work as a hairdresser in her father’s business. She was married at eighteen and ran her own hairdressing business for some years.

  Rosie loves to write and has penned over one hundred novels under different pseudonyms. She writes about the beauty of nature and sometimes puts a little into her books, though they are mostly about love and romance.

  Also by Rosie Clarke:

  The Downstairs Maid

  Chapter One

  ‘Tell my fortune, Gran,’ I begged, offering my hand palm-up across the scrubbed pine kitchen table. ‘Oh, please – just this once.’

  She puffed on her clay pipe, silently regarding me from those wise old eyes, and considered. Known affectionately to March townsfolk as Old Mother Jacobs, my grandmother disliked telling fortunes for her family because she was afraid of what she might see. She had read her husband’s death in the tea leaves and it had frightened her so much that she had tried to ignore her gift ever since, which was a shame because there was no doubting she had the ‘sight’.

  ‘Please, Gran …’

  ‘Maybe just this once then … seeing as you’ve brought me baccy.’

  ‘I didn’t do it for that, Gran.’

  ‘No, that you didn’t, you’re a good girl.’

  Gran took my hand in hers. Her skin felt rough and callused from years of hard work; her fingers were misshapen claws spotted with age and twisted with the rheumatics. I waited eagerly as she puffed on her pipe, looked thoughtful, then began to trace the lifeline on my hand with a yellowed fingernail.

  ‘You’ve a long life ahead of you, girl,’ she said at last. ‘A long, hard road to travel by the looks of it. You’ll not have easy times.’

  My life had never been easy. I wanted Gran to tell me about the future. ‘I don’t mind work,’ I said, dismissing her warning. ‘Will I marry? Will I have children?’

  Sometimes I was afraid that my life would never change. I had been working in Father’s shop ever since I’d left school at fifteen. I hadn’t wanted to leave. My teacher had been sure I was bright enough to win a place at college, that I could go on to become a teacher myself, but my father had refused to listen.

  ‘If you’re bright enough for that, you can keep the books for me,’ he had told me when I’d begged him to let me stay on at school. ‘You’ll not need to go out and earn a living. The business will be yours one day, so you may as well learn how to look after things. I don’t want to employ anyone else, Emma. May as well keep the money in the family.’

  My father was very careful with his money; some people said he was mean, though not within his hearing.

  ‘You will have a child,’ Gran said, nodding her head. ‘Perhaps more than one. There’s a break in the line here. It means …’ She shook her head and let go of my hand. ‘Nothing. It’s all nonsense. Why I let you persuade me I don’t know. You’ll marry if you want, Emma. You ain’t a beauty but there’s something grand about you – goodness knows where it comes from. Not from me or your father, that’s for sure – but mayhap your father’s folk. There was always a mystery about Harold Robinson. Nobody knew where he came from twenty-odd years ago when he set up shop and they’re none the wiser now. A close man, your father – in more ways than one.’

  No, I wasn’t pretty; Gran was right about that. I had thick, dark hair, which I brushed back off my face and secured into a coil at the nape of the neck, and my eyes were brown, but there was nothing remarkable about me that I could see.

  ‘Pretty isn’t everything,’ Gran said, taking another puff of her pipe. ‘You’ve got something men like. Your destiny is in your own hands, girl. Don’t you worry, things will come right one of these days. You won’t always be tied to your father’s shop.’

  ‘You are a pet!’ I flew round the table and hugged her. She smelled of baking and carbolic, familiar and much loved. ‘Shall I wash the tea things before I go?’

  ‘Am I the invalid now, that I can’t wash a couple of plates?’ She scowled at me, but the fierce look hid a warm heart. ‘Be off with you, Emma. It’s a lovely day. Take a bit of a walk and get some air into you. Your father keeps you indoors too much.’

  ‘At least he lets me visit you once a week.’

  ‘I’d have something to say if he didn’t.’ She gave me a long, speculative look. ‘You’re a good lass, Emma. I look forward to your visits – but if ever you want to do a bit of courtin’ on a Wednesday afternoon, you don’t need to worry over me. I shan’t grumble if you don’t come.’

  ‘You’re a wicked woman,’ I said, laughing. ‘At the moment there’s no lad I’d rather spend my time with – if there was I would tell you.’

  ‘I know that.’ Gran’s eyes had a naughty glint, reminding me that she had by all accounts been a bit of a lass in her youth. ‘But there’s a few lads have noticed you, lass. Your father won’t be able to hang on to you for ever, no matter how hard he tries.’

  ‘Bless you,’ I said and kissed her cheek. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Gran.’

  She was looking at me, an odd sadness in her eyes that made me wonder what she was thinking.

  ‘You’re not ill, Gran?’ I asked, a cold chill at the base of my spine.

  ‘No, I’m not ill. Get off with you, before the day’s wasted!’

  I smiled as I left my grandmother’s cottage. It was built close to the railway line and Gran spent most of her time these days sitting at her back door, puffing her pipe and waving to folk in the trains which rattled past. She was known to almost everyone in March, a small, busy, Cambridgeshire town which had one of the largest marshalling yards in Europe and had become prosperous because of it, and to many travellers who passed through on their daily journeys to and from work.

  Her husband, Jack Jacobs, had worked all his life as a railwayman, ending his days as a crossing keeper. After his death, Gran had rented her tiny cottage from the railway, living on her meagre savings and gifts of fruit or vegetables from the gardens of people who knew and liked her.

  Remembering a conversation with my father earlier that morning, I frowned. I had asked him for something to take Gran as a gift, but he had refused me.

  ‘I’ve no money to be wasting on Mother Jacobs,’ he’d muttered. ‘She’ll get by without charity from me; she always has.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking for money, Father. Just some tobacco or a bar of Fry’s dark chocolate. She likes that.’

  ‘You’ve got you
r wages. Buy her something yourself if you’re so set on it.’

  I had intended to do that anyway. But it wouldn’t have hurt Father to give me something for Gran. He made more than enough money, and I ought to know. I kept the books for him, though I had no idea what he did with all the profits. Neither my mother nor I saw much of them. He certainly didn’t pay me much of a wage.

  I mulled over my grandmother’s words. It was true that Father didn’t give me much time away from the shop, which sold newspapers, sweets, tobacco and various odds and ends, like stationery, lighters and boot-laces. He had once considered selling food, too, but there was a large greengrocer’s next door and a general grocer’s at the end of the road, so in the end he had decided to stick to the trade he knew best.

  I was thankful he had decided against branching out. I already worked long hours for the eight shillings a week he paid me. I could have earned more in the new corset factory, which had recently set up in town, but Father had refused to hear a word about it.

  ‘No daughter of Harold Robinson is going to work there,’ he had told me when I’d mentioned it. ‘Common as muck, that’s what those women are. You should think more of yourself, Emma, and thank your lucky stars for the home you’ve got. You don’t need more money. You’ve a bed to sleep in, food in your stomach, and your mother will make you a new dress when you need one.’

  My mother was good with her needle. She always looked smart herself, a slim, trim, attractive woman who had once been a looker, but had a permanent droop to her mouth these days. I had never minded wearing the dresses and blouses she made me for everyday, but I did want a smart, tailor-made costume for best. I’d seen one in a shop in the main street, and every Wednesday on my way back from visiting Gran, I popped in to look at it. Just to make sure it was still there.

  That afternoon, I panicked when I glanced through the costume rail. It had gone! Disappointment swept over me. I had been saving, but I’d left it too long.

  ‘Don’t look like that.’ Mrs Henty came through from the back. ‘I’ve put it by for you, Emma. Someone else was looking at it on Saturday, and I didn’t want it to go.’

  ‘But it will be ages before I can save enough to pay you.’

  ‘How much have you saved so far?’ Mrs Henty gave me an encouraging smile.

  ‘Ten shillings – and I should be able to put another two by this week.’

  ‘Well, let’s see – how about this? You pay me a deposit, then bring in what you can until you’ve paid the rest off.’

  I thought about the costume. It had a long, slim skirt that flared out slightly into a frill of box pleats just above my ankles; the jacket was three-quarter length and in the new swagger or jigger style, which hung like a kind of triangle over the tight skirt and looked very stylish; and the shade was a soft green, which suited my colouring.

  ‘It was really kind of you to put it by for me,’ I said, making the big decision. ‘I would like to pay so much a week, if you’re sure you don’t mind?’

  My father would be angry if he knew what I was doing; he didn’t believe in owing anything to anyone, but if I didn’t decide now someone else would buy my costume.

  ‘I’d rather you had it than anyone else,’ Mrs Henty said. ‘That woman on Saturday wanted it for a wedding, but it would be wasted on her. No, it’s your costume, Emma. That lovely green looks just right on you, dear.’

  ‘I might be able to pay you more soon, if my father gives me another two shillings a week. He said he would if I got up earlier to sort out the papers for the boys to deliver, and I have all this week.’

  ‘You make him pay you the extra,’ Mrs Henty advised. ‘He can afford it. He must know what a treasure he’s got in you, dear. Goodness knows I’d love to have you working for me.’

  ‘Father would never let me,’ I said with a sigh of regret. ‘I only wish I could work for you, Mrs Henty. You have such lovely clothes.’

  She smiled and nodded as I went out. It was an impossible dream, of course. Father would find some reason why he didn’t want his daughter to work in a dress shop.

  Mother had the table spread when I got in. She knew I always had a cup of tea and a piece of cake with Gran, but it was nearly six and Father would be up for his supper at half past. It was our chance for a quiet gossip before I went down to take Father’s place in the shop.

  ‘How was your grandmother?’ she asked as I took off my coat and hat, hanging them on the pegs in the hall. ‘Pleased with the baccy, I expect?’

  ‘She always is.’ I followed my mother into the sitting room, which was a good size and furnished with a modern sideboard, painted bookcases and a comfortable three-piece suite. There were several pieces of brightly coloured pottery standing about and prints of famous paintings on the walls. Father might be cautious about giving either my mother or me money, but he was fond of saying he liked a nice home, and spent his money on things that appealed to him. ‘She can’t afford much for herself these days – though she never seems to go hungry. Someone brought eggs and tomatoes for her while I was there.’

  ‘Aye, your Gran is well liked,’ Mother said with a nod of satisfaction. ‘My father was popular, too. Most of the lads from the railway pop in to see Mother Jacobs now and then – for his sake, I reckon. They’ve not forgotten how he warned their fathers and uncles when the signals were down that time – saved a few lives he did, and ran himself ragged to do it.’

  There was a gleam of pride in my mother’s eyes as she spoke of her father, a gleam that was not often there these days. I remembered a time when I was a small child and she had seemed happier. She and my father had not quarrelled so often in those days, at least not in my hearing – but that was a long time ago.

  My mother was justifiably proud of Grandfather Jack. Having been told the story many times, I knew it well. It had happened several years ago, when I was still a toddler. Some twenty-odd men had been working on repairs to the rails when a non-stop through train had been accidentally shunted on to the wrong line. Only Jack’s quick thinking and a desperate dash across the back land had averted what could have been a terrible accident.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘Gran was well. She sent you her love.’

  My mother gave me a disbelieving look. Mother Jacobs had never had much patience with her own daughter. She had been against Greta’s marriage to Harold Robinson in the first place, and thought she should stand up to her husband more – but then, she wasn’t married to him. Besides, he respected her, grudgingly. She didn’t know what a tyrant he could be if thwarted. Only Mum and I knew that.

  Gran’s own marriage had been happy, producing three strapping great sons besides my mother, all of whom worked for the railways but were scattered far and wide over the country. My mother was the only one of Gran’s children who still lived near enough to visit her, so it was a pity they didn’t get on as well as they might.

  ‘What else did you do this afternoon?’ Mother asked. ‘Did you go for a walk?’

  ‘After I left Gran’s.’ I sighed as I recalled my time of freedom, which was over all too soon. ‘It was lovely by the river, Mum. Oh, and I met Richard Gillows on the way to Gran’s. He walked with me for a few minutes. Asked about you and Father, same as usual.’ I pulled a wry face: Richard was not my favourite person. ‘He always seems to have his break at the same time on my afternoon off.’

  ‘I expect it’s the finish of his shift. He’s on local runs at the moment, isn’t he? Just as far as Ely or Littleport. It will be different if they put him back on the Cambridge and London run.’

  Richard was a train driver. In his late twenties, he was a tall, burly man, good-looking I supposed, in a rather coarse way, with black hair and narrow-set eyes. He had a decent job and was respected, though there were whispers that he liked his drink. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Most men enjoyed a few beers in the pub now and then. As long as it wasn’t any more serious, it wouldn’t be frowned on in our community.

  ‘You don’t fancy him, do
you?’ My mother looked at me curiously as we sat down to the dining table. ‘He’s quite a looker. Most girls would go weak at the knees if he changed shifts just so as he could walk with them for a few minutes.’

  ‘Not me.’ I sighed as my mother pushed a plate of buttered muffins in front of me. ‘Do you think I’ll ever meet anyone, Mum? A man I could really love and respect?’

  ‘There aren’t many about would be good enough for you, Emma – and you don’t want to marry for the sake of comfort the way I did. Look where that got me!’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ I said, feeling unhappy as I saw the disappointed drag to her mouth. ‘It’s obvious you and Father don’t get on – but do you honestly wish you had never married him?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for you, I would.’ She reached out and squeezed my hand affectionately. Her eyes held a sad, reminiscent expression. ‘I liked him well enough to begin with, and I thought we could make each other happy. He was kind to me, and I respected him, even looked up to him – but it wasn’t real love. There was someone else I cared for and he asked me first, but I was young and silly. We quarrelled and I sent him away. Then Harold came after me. I turned him down for a start, but I suppose my head was turned by the thought of having my own shop and house … pretty clothes and holidays at Margate or Bournemouth, that’s what I expected.’ Her whole body drooped with defeat. ‘All I got was a life of penny-pinching and scrimping. Your father says it’s all he can do to keep the shop going these days.’

  ‘That’s not true, Mum. We make a reasonable profit but …’ I frowned. ‘He takes the money out every night, says he has to pay bills, but I see the bills. He can’t spend it all, because he only goes for a drink twice a week and then he comes home sober. So what does he do with the rest of it?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ Mother said, sighing. She broke off, looking guilty and a bit frightened as she heard the tread of heavy boots on the stairs. ‘You’d best get off, Emma. You know what he’s like.’

  I wiped the butter from my mouth with a spotless, starched white napkin, then pushed back my chair. My mother was a good housekeeper, but then my father was a particular man and would have complained if everything wasn’t to his liking.