The Forget-Me-Not Girl

by Sheila Newberry

  ‘Thirsty?’ Emma called, uncorking a bottle of lemonade, coloured bright yellow from lemon peel steeped in boiling water. They munched left-over rolls from breakfast, slit and buttered, with a fat sausage slotted in. Anna peeled the hard-boiled eggs and passed them round in a napkin, and there were flat cakes cooked on the griddle and dusted with sugar. They finished the meal with rosy apples. Emma closed the basket. ‘Let’s do some more exploring and see where this path leads us.

  At four o’clock she and Nan were back in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal. Nan’s face was flushed from the fresh air and sunshine. Her new dress hung in Emma’s closet. Unexpectedly she hugged Emma round the waist as she was rolling pastry on the table. ‘Emma – I had a luverly day! Will we go agin?’

  ‘Of course, we will,’ Emma said softly. ‘No one deserves a treat more than you, Nan . . .’

  Upstairs, the aunts were opening their hat boxes to show Frances the fancy confections. ‘In a year or two, you’ll be old enough to come shopping with us. I hope your day was not too dull?’

  ‘We went to the gardens and had a picnic,’ Frances said. She couldn’t tell them how magical it had been, how much she had enjoyed her outing with friends. ‘I saw a nice black spaniel.’

  ‘Time for your piano practice,’ Aunt Rosalie said firmly.

  *

  ‘It’s my nephew’s birthday soon,’ Anna said one morning at breakfast. ‘If I provide the ingredients, could you make him one of your wonderful fruit cakes, Emma, please? He is a firefighter, you know, and because he is always on call, he eats his meals when he can. I know he is fond of fruit cake.’

  ‘Of course, I will make him a birthday cake! He’s the one who left the navy, isn’t he – I know the other one is still serving – doesn’t he have a wife to cook for him?’

  ‘No, he isn’t married. He’ll only be twenty-five next week. About your age, Emma.’

  Emma hoped she wasn’t blushing; she hadn’t got around to revealing her real age to any of them yet. She had actually come here a few days after her twenty-first birthday in January the previous year, but had told her employers she was twenty-three in her letter. What had her mother told her children? Always be truthful for it will come out anyway.

  The cake was duly baked and delivered by Anna to TF’s lodgings. ‘My friend Emma – she’s our cook – made it at my request!’ She saw how fatigued he was, his blue eyes dark-circled from too many nights fighting fires, especially at the dockside warehouses. There was always the fear of another Tooley Street disaster, but the brigade was well-prepared with the new steam engines.

  ‘Dear Anna, let me fetch a knife and we’ll have a slice with a cup of tea! My good friend Chas will probably join us! Nothing like home-made cake, is there, especially one bursting with fruit and nuts!’

  When Chas turned up and was introduced to Anna, she took to him immediately. She knew TF must miss his brother, as the two had been so close, but Chas and he had that same easy rapport together. Like Emma and me, she thought.

  She said, ‘When we can manage an afternoon off at the same time, you must come and meet Emma, TF. We can walk in the communal gardens. Then you can compliment her on the cake!’

  *

  The meeting came about on a day when the entire family went to watch the Summers boys in a cricket match at their school playing fields.

  ‘TF has the afternoon off, but he is back on duty this evening,’ Anna said. ‘We should wear our best summer frocks, and you might let me brush your hair in a chignon, so much prettier and looser than that tight knot you think suitable for your profession! Let’s hope the sun shines all day.’

  ‘Nan reported a cloudless sky. She’s going home after she’s finished in the scullery. Do I really look as severe as all that?’

  ‘Emma, you’re always smiling! But it’s a day for relaxing the rules. I hope you’ve made something filling for a young man to eat?’

  ‘A raised pork pie. The smaller of two. The other is for the family tonight.’

  ‘What about a fruit cake?’

  ‘I decided on a cherry cake this time.’

  TF was waiting at the gate for them and waved as they approached. He saw that his aunt’s companion was a diminutive young woman in a white voile dress, patterned with tiny blue dots, a light shawl round her shoulders and a round straw hat. He noted her bright, dark eyes, and the tendrils of hair that framed her face, having escaped the soft loops of hair in the chignon. This was no large stout cook as he’d imagined, but she shook his hand firmly and looked up at him, with a mischievous smile. ‘I didn’t think you would be so tall.’

  ‘And I didn’t think you would be so small! Or so pretty!’ Then he turned to kiss Anna. ‘Are you matchmaking?’ he murmured in her ear.

  ‘D’you mind?’ she returned demurely.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, well aware that Emma was blushing.

  ‘I thought you would be in uniform,’ Emma ventured, as they walked along in a threesome, arms linked, with herself in the middle. TF held the basket, and Anna carried a parasol, as well as her bag. Emma almost felt as if she was being carried along by the two of them. It disturbed her, being so close to someone she’d never met before. She thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. Such blue eyes, cropped, golden hair under his straw hat, and the soft Geordie–Irish voice, as Anna had described it.

  ‘I don’t get much chance to wear anything else. It was the same when I was in the navy, but my friend Chas lent me his frock coat and I bought a new pair of trousers,’ he said disarmingly. ‘Chas said I must look smart if I was escorting two ladies. However, the cravat is mine, fortunately silk doesn’t crumple.’

  ‘I expect you thought I would be in my black dress with white cap and apron.’

  ‘I don’t believe I would notice if you were.’

  Emma didn’t quite know how to take that.

  ‘Here we are.’ Anna detached herself from them and walked over to their favourite bench under the chestnut tree. ‘Bring the basket over and I’ll unpack the picnic.’ She brandished a kitchen knife. ‘I’m about to slice up the pork pie.’

  ‘Lemonade?’ Emma offered TF a glass. She had packed this carefully in paper in case of breakage. ‘We’ve some washed watercress to go with the pie. Take a plate and help yourself.’

  TF certainly had a healthy appetite. ‘Cherry cake. The fruit cake you baked was much appreciated by two hungry firemen, and this is – almost – as good.’

  Anna was waving at a mother with a baby in a perambulator coming towards them on the path. ‘Oh, there’s our neighbour – this must be her first outing with her baby. D’you mind if I go and admire her new daughter and cross her palm with silver – I’ve got a sixpence in my purse.’ She hurried across the grass to look into the perambulator and to chat to the young mother.

  TF didn’t move away from Emma, in fact he shifted nearer. ‘You and I have a lot in common I believe. We are the same age—’

  Emma felt so comfortable in his presence she allowed the words to spill out. ‘I have a confession which is overdue. I am twenty-two, three years younger than you – I added to my age when I applied for my job. I thought they would think I wasn’t old enough for such a responsible post. I know you have had your troubles and lost your mother. I was about the same age when my dear mother passed away. You lost a little sister too . . . and I, a young brother. When my father died and we were forced to leave our home, my younger sisters and brothers went to the workhouse. That was a very sad time for all of us.’

  ‘My father is still alive, but he doesn’t know us. He has been in the infirmary for several years. My brother and I are miles apart, he is mostly on the high seas, and my sister Mary, I hear, intends to marry when she reaches sixteen in a few months time. However, I have some family, Anna and my Uncle Charlie, though he is at sea too, and my father’s brother, Patrick, at Woolwich.’

  ‘My family are still in Norfolk, but I keep in touch with them all. Anna is a good friend to m
e. I – I have a feeling . . .’ She looked up into those bright blue eyes. ‘I can’t explain it, but . . .’

  He said softly, ‘I can, I think . . . I never believed it could be like this, Emma. For me, this is love at first sight. I have never felt so happy in all my life before . . . May I dare to hope, you feel the same?’

  Emma took a deep breath, ‘Yes – yes, I do!’ She felt exultant. It’s all so sudden, she thought, but I’m going to marry him one day!

  ‘I wish I could kiss you, Emma, but look, Anna is about to return, I think, she just waved!’

  Emma squeezed his hand. As Anna bid goodbye to her friend, he said urgently, ‘Emma, we were meant to meet, I’m sure.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said, suddenly aware that they were holding hands. They sprang self-consciously apart as Anna arrived and cried brightly, ‘Oh, I can’t resist a baby!’ Then she saw their faces. ‘Oh, you two like each other, I knew you would!’

  THIRTEEN

  Emma

  London, 1862

  Mr Summers would like to see you, Emma, in the drawing room,’ Anna said, as she came into the kitchen. ‘Oh, and may I have the bicarbonate of soda, please. Miss Adelaide has indigestion.’

  ‘I hope it wasn’t caused by the smoked haddock she had for breakfast! D’you know what Mr Summers wants to speak to me about?’

  ‘Well, I can guess, but it’s not my place to tell you! I’ll just say it could be a nice surprise.’

  Despite the reassurance, Emma felt flustered as she went up the stairs to the first floor. She knocked politely on the door, then entered the drawing room. Mr Summers was standing by the window and turned at her approach. He smoothed his moustache with finger and thumb, as if thinking what to say.

  ‘Ah, Emma. You know, of course, that we are going for our annual visit to Brighton shortly? We always invite one or two of the staff to accompany us to carry out, ah, less onerous duties, for the ladies in particular, and Anna has suggested that you might like to take care of the catering. A simple breakfast and an evening snack. No need, ah, for you to slave over a hot stove. In fine weather we may require a picnic or will visit a restaurant.’ He hesitated. ‘You could regard it as a holiday, though I suppose the seaside is not a novelty to you, coming from Norfolk?’

  ‘Oh, sir, I’ve never even been to Yarmouth! My father was always too busy with the farm to take us, and we were a large family, you know. I would be very pleased to go to Brighton.’

  ‘That’s good. We always buy our provisions after we arrive there, by the way. Mrs Love will step into the breach here.’ As she still stood there, he asked, ‘Is there anything else you wish to say?’

  ‘Please, can young Nan come too? She and Frances have become friends, and I would be responsible for her, but she’s a good girl, and she, well, she deserves a holiday more than anyone!’

  Mr Summers cleared his throat, as he always did when he was wondering what to say. ‘You may give her the good news. It is a modest dwelling, so she will have to share a room with you and Anna. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mr Summers!’ She couldn’t wait to tell Nan and Anna.

  Mr Summers regarded his wife’s portrait. ‘I think you would approve, Frances – didn’t you always remind us “Charity begins at home?” Though I’m not sure what the girls will say!’

  *

  Brighton had certainly changed from the tiny village known originally as Brighthelmston. As Daniel Defoe wrote over a century before, it was ‘on the edge of the sea’. At that time the fishing industry was in decline, and many had sought work elsewhere while those left lived in abject poverty.

  The town’s fortunes turned when the Prince Regent, later King George IV, began to visit on the advice of his father, George III, who had developed an enthusiasm for sea-bathing. He believed the eminent physicians who claimed this practice promoted good health. Drinking sea water was considered a cure for such varied complaints as asthma, rheumatism, cancer and consumption and, inexplicably, deafness. Holidays by the sea became fashionable among the gentry.

  Brighton still had its bleak side, with areas that were inadvisable for visitors to explore. There were the same problems as in the slums of London – overcrowded lodging houses, pickpockets, beggars and ragged children, and overall the putrid odour of poor sanitation, for many cess pits were dug in shifting shingle, resulting in contamination of local springs. Disease was endemic.

  However, the trains that first linked London to Brighton in 1841 conveyed the prosperous middle classes to holiday by the sea. Most of these, like the Summers, had bought or built properties along the front. Some of the latter were rented out in the season. When the railway started to offer third-class tickets, they were joined by a much larger group of visitors who worked hard to afford this experience. Queen Victoria, who until that time had enjoyed private family holidays in Brighton, decided to change the royal holiday destination to Osborne in the Isle of Wight.

  The Summers boys were spending the final days of their summer vacation in Gloucestershire. ‘Their hosts have a new tennis court!’ Frances told her friends in the kitchen. ‘They are both keen on sports, unlike me – but I am the swot in the family! Then I overheard Aunt Rosalie say I was unlikely to marry because I had opinions of my own, as they have, and wives aren’t expected to be like that.’

  ‘One should only marry for love,’ Anna said unexpectedly with a sigh, then they all looked at Emma, who blushed in embarrassment. Is it so obvious I have a beau? she wondered. Despite their closeness, she had not even shared her secret love for TF with Anna.

  September, after the influx of visitors at the height of summer, was a good time to visit Brighton. The house had bay windows overlooking the sea, where boats of all kinds bobbed on the breakers, and a bracing wind blew the hair and clothes of walkers crunching along the shingle into disarray. Emma took deep breaths of the salt-laden air and delighted in venturing along the beach, clinging to Anna’s arm, while Frances and Nan dipped their toes in the briny water with shrieks of, ‘Oh my, it’s cold!’ Their hastily discarded boots and stockings were in danger of being washed over by the incoming tide, which had already obscured the strip of muddy sand where children made wobbly sandcastles. Screeching gulls hovered hopefully over a fishing boat on the horizon.

  ‘It was so kind of the ladies,’ Emma said to Anna, as they moved these articles further up the shingle, ‘to buy Nan some new clothes – she looks so bonny in that navy skirt and jacket with the sailor collar, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think what she is wearing underneath is more important, especially as they have bundled their skirts round their waists – she is very lacking in that respect!’

  They came upon a line of beached rowing boats where a man and a dog sat together waiting for customers next to a sign that read: Boat trips. ‘Not today, but later in the week,’ Anna called out. ‘It looks too rough out at sea,’ she added to Emma.

  ‘Aunt Adelaide said they are going to the Theatre Royal with Papa this evening, I wish they would ask us!’ Frances said, when the girls caught up with them.

  ‘Oh, Anna and I have planned to light the fire, make toast and—’

  ‘Scrambling eggs!’ Nan chimed in.

  ‘Why not? And then we’ll play games and make as much noise as we like!’

  *

  Emma received a letter during their first week in Brighton. She tucked it in her pocket, for she was boiling the breakfast eggs when Nan brought the post in to sort on the kitchen table. She would have to contain her impatience to open it. She knew the letter must be from TF, for he was the only one she had given their holiday address.

  Life was very informal here. Family ate with the staff in the dining room, sitting at a round table with a vase of flowers in the centre. Frances and Nan passed the plates round, Miss Maria poured coffee, while Emma was in charge of the teapot. Anna made sure the table was properly laid and it was she who had fetched the hot rolls from the bakery earlier, along with Mr Summers’ newsp
aper. He waited his turn to be served and glanced at his paper meanwhile. Emma was hoping to catch him on his own after the meal, for she had something to ask him.

  When the ladies had departed to make ready for the day’s excursion, and Nan, Frances and Anna were washing up, Emma seized her chance, after quickly perusing her letter. ‘Mr Summers, I have heard from a friend who would like to visit me here on Saturday, if that is permissible,’ she began.

  Mr Summers folded his newspaper, looked up and smiled at her. ‘Your young man, I take it, Emma? The handsome fireman who sometimes walks with you, Anna and Frances in the gardens?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thomas Meehan, Anna’s nephew. I hope you don’t mind him accompanying us?’

  ‘Not at all, but Emma, you have no need of a chaperone in a public place, you know!’ He cleared his throat, fingered his collar. ‘Of course, your friend is welcome here. However, you shouldn’t, ah, feel you must take the young ones wherever you go. We had planned a picnic on the Downs, I don’t think they are too old for a donkey ride, do you? You may have the day to yourselves.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Summers – you are so kind!’ Emma said gratefully.

  *

  She was there to meet him from the excursion train. He was waving his hat through the open window to attract her attention, but of course she had already spotted his blond head and hurried along the platform to greet him. He saw that she had let her hair down and it tumbled to her shoulders beyond the confines of her bonnet. She was wearing a full-skirted, floral-patterned frock – it had taken her hours to sew all the ruffles in place in the latest fashion – and her mother’s wedding shawl, fastened with a shell brooch she’d bought from a stall in the market.

  ‘Here, you can pin this on with your brooch,’ he told her, as he took from his lapel a single rosebud. ‘I thought it was the safest place for it on the journey,’ he said.