‘About Fleur,’ Ruby said. ‘Is what you’ve just told me about her secret or is it for general gossip?’
‘Not gossip, Ruby,’ Emma said. ‘But if anyone should ask, that’s what you can tell them.’
Emma lifted one foot from the clutch and put the other on the accelerator and the car inched forward slowly.
‘You took the car!’ Seth’s face was red with rage. ‘I saw it hurtling down Upper Street and waved at you to stop, but you didn’t see me.’
‘I wasn’t hurtling. And I didn’t see you because I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. I’m sorry about the paintwork. I misjudged the distance from the wall coming into Church Street.’
‘I’m not worried about a bit of paintwork. You could have been killed!’
‘But I wasn’t.’
‘I forbid you to take it out again on your own.’
‘Why? I’ll be more careful next time. Already I’m getting the hang of it.’
Emma turned her back on Seth and began to see to Fleur, who didn’t really need seeing to for anything in particular, other than to be chucked under the chin to make her smile – something she seemed to be doing a lot.
Seth was cross with her, but Emma wasn’t going to let it bother her. She was just so elated that she’d managed to drive the car at all and had come back in one piece – and with an order for twice the amount of tarts to be delivered in two days’ time. Besides, she knew Seth was all at sixes and sevens about Fleur’s arrival, wasn’t he?
‘Have you heard a word I said?’ Seth asked, putting a hand on Emma’s shoulder, forcing her to turn and face him, ‘I love you too much to be party to any harm coming to you if you drive a car that’s too big and too heavy and too difficult for a woman to control.’
‘It’s nice to hear you say you love me,’ Emma said, a little stiffly, because she wasn’t liking being told what she could and couldn’t do one little bit, ‘but I managed to drive the car well enough until I turned into Church Street. Ruby was—’
‘You took Ruby?’
‘Ruby loved it. I drove really slowly past Nase Head House and she yelled to Tom in the garden and he spun round and waved back. I think she’s sweet on Tom.’
‘I’m not in the slightest bit interested in who Ruby is sweet on or not. What I’m more concerned about now is that Ruby knows about Fleur.’
‘Of course she does,’ Emma said. ‘I’d quite forgotten she’d said she’d call and I could hardly have put Fleur back in her cot and left her there while we went out. But I thought quickly. I’ve told her she’s your cousin Frank’s child. And that his wife died in childbirth. Frank’s gone mad with grief and is in an institution and unlikely to ever come out. Your Uncle Silas and his wife are too old to care for her and she’s been sent to you. From Canada. A nurse brought her. She had blue eyes.’
‘Blue eyes? Fleur?’
‘No. The nurse. I panicked, Seth. My mouth kept coming out with all these words like I was reading from a script. I couldn’t tell Ruby the truth, so I made it all up as I went along. I don’t think she believed me, but she didn’t question it. We’re going to have to stick to that story now, aren’t we? Because if anyone asks Ruby why we’ve got a baby here, I’ve told her she can tell them that.’
‘Emma, you—’
‘Oh,’ Emma said, stopping him. ‘I should have said we were legally adopting her, shouldn’t I? I’ll mention that next time. Anyway, why weren’t you back in time to drive me to Paignton?’
Seth sighed. ‘I called on Olly. His mother insisted on me sharing their lunch and I couldn’t refuse. I thought, seeing as Olly’s my friend and is likely to call here, he ought to know about Fleur.’
‘And you’ve told him a totally different version of things?’
‘I did. I told him the truth – privately, of course. He’d heard all sorts of rumours about … Fleur’s mother being in Plymouth – and why – but hadn’t liked to mention any of it to me.’
Seth couldn’t say Caroline’s name, could he? And although the situation they were in was sad for Fleur – and serious for them because they were going to have to make a lot of adjustments to their lives – that felt good to Emma. She reached for Seth’s hands and clasped them in her own.
‘I didn’t mean to make you cross. I do and say things without thinking sometimes. I know I act on impulse.’ As if to prove it, she stood on tiptoe and kissed Seth on the lips, letting the kiss linger. ‘But I’m not sorry I took the car because Mr Clarke at the Esplanade Hotel has doubled his order.’
Emma unclasped Seth’s hand and fed his arms behind her back. Then she linked her hands behind Seth’s neck.
‘We might need all the orders you can get,’ Seth said.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve put the boats up for sale this morning. I instructed Bettesworth.’
‘What?’ Emma unclasped her hands again and wriggled from the embrace. ‘You didn’t tell me you were doing that.’
‘I know Pa’s dead, but I don’t think I’m going to be free of him until I’ve stopped being him, if you understand my meaning.’
‘Running the fishing fleet as he did?’ Emma said, and Seth nodded. ‘I wish you’d discussed it with me first. I’m in a whirl with everything, I really am.’
‘It was going to be the first thing I told you when I got back from Olly’s. I should have told you about the boats, but …’ Seth’s eyes widened in alarm and he ran to the window. ‘Oh my God! There’s smoke everywhere.’
Emma ran to join him.
‘I can smell burning, Seth.’
‘So can I now. Stay here with Fleur,’ Seth said. ‘I think your bakery is on fire.’
‘No! I’m coming with you!’
‘Stay!’ Seth yelled at her and ran out of the house.
But Emma didn’t stay. She ran upstairs with Fleur and put her – screaming now, more than likely because she’d picked up on the sudden dramatic turn – in her cot. Then she raced back down the stairs, slipping two steps from the bottom so that she landed with a thud, the air knocked out of her almost. She gulped in air and at last was breathing normally again.
She ran from the house and raced across the garden, through the gate, to the bakery. Flames were leaping at the small window. And Seth was nowhere to be seen.
‘Seth!’ Emma yelled, her heart rate rising dramatically. She felt hot, then cold, then hot again. Fear made her mouth go dry and she licked her lips to moisten them. ‘Seth!’ she yelled again.
Seth came running from the door of the bakery, his arms piled high with bowls and utensils, which he threw with all his might away from the fire.
‘Water, Emma!’ He disappeared, before coming back again almost instantly and throwing a pail in Emma’s direction. ‘There’s another by the pump!’
Emma grabbed the pail and ran to the pump. It seemed to be taking forever to get the water to rise as she pumped the handle so fast and so hard that she thought the muscles in her arms might snap at any moment. At last she had two pails full and walked as fast as she dared, so as not to spill too much, back to Seth.
Seth ran into the burning building and Emma heard the hiss of water hitting flame.
‘Come out, Seth!’ she called to him.
There were only things in there. Everything could be replaced. Everything except Seth if he were killed. Emma was torn between running into the bakery to grab hold of him to make him leave, and going back to the house to check on Fleur. Decisions. How to make the right one? She ran back to the house to call for the fire cart.
It seemed an age before the fire cart turned up, although in reality it was hardly longer than ten minutes. Seth had done what he could, but the place was well alight by then. He put an arm round Emma’s shoulders and together they watched as eventually the flames were doused.
Even by lamplight, Emma could see that Seth’s eyes were red-rimmed from the heat and he had more than a few streaks of black from the fire on his face, and she guessed that she was more than likely just as dirty.
&n
bsp; ‘I can smell something,’ Emma said. ‘Oil?’
‘And petrol,’ Seth said. ‘Someone’s done this on purpose. But there’s nothing more we can do now, sweetheart. We’ll take stock in the morning and I promise to get it back to rights for you as soon as I can.’
‘Who could have done such a thing? Why is everyone and everything taken away from me?’ Emma asked. ‘Mama, Papa and Johnnie. And now the bakery. I don’t do bad things to anyone.’ She swallowed back a sob. Crying wouldn’t help.
‘Of course you don’t do bad things. Only good,’ Seth assured her.
‘I thought I was going to lose you, too, for one terrible moment back there. No, make that lots of terrible moments.’
‘I was doing everything as safely as I could.’
‘I know now. I didn’t then,’ Emma said. ‘But who could have done such a thing?’ She and Seth sat side by side at the kitchen table, exhausted – too tired even to drag themselves up the stairs to bed. Two cups of tea sat in front of them. Emma’s untouched. She didn’t have the strength to lift up the cup and drink. She was dirty. Fearful.
She kept asking the same question over and over, knowing no one could give her the right answer. It couldn’t have been Miles because he was back in custody. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t paid someone to do it, because the fire hadn’t been an accident. Wood had been pulled from the storage area and piled up in the open doorway. There had also definitely been a smell of oil and petrol mingling with the aroma of burnt wood. The fire cart crew had confirmed it.
‘I don’t know who did it,’ Seth said. His face was still smeared with soot and his eyes still red-rimmed from the heat. ‘But if I ever find out I’ll—’
‘Kill them. That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?’
‘You know it is. I can understand now how a man could kill if he was pushed far enough. And I’ve been pushed. I’ll keep watch for as long as I think I need to in case whoever did this comes back and tries—’
‘To burn Mulberry House down?’ Emma asked, terrified. ‘But you can’t stop up every night, Seth.’
‘If I think I need to, then I will, Emma.’
And the look on Seth’s determined face told her that there would be no point arguing with him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said.
‘What for?’
‘That my being here seems to be bringing you nothing but trouble.’
‘Emma Jago,’ Seth said, ‘you are the most adorable bundle of trouble a man could ever want.’ He kissed her, then wiped at a smut of ash that had fallen from him onto her nose.
‘One thing’s for certain,’ Emma said. ‘Whoever did this isn’t going to part us and they aren’t going to stop me running my business. I’ll have to cook in the house to fulfil my orders until the damage is repaired.’
Chapter Six
The grandfather clock in the corner of the drawing room struck the hour. Midnight.
‘Nineteen hundred and twelve just has to be better for us, sweetheart,’ Seth said.
He poured two measures of sweet white wine into glasses and handed one to Emma, who was sitting on the couch. She looked at him sadly and clasped the glass in her hands by the bowl so tightly that Seth thought the fine, Georgian glass might break. The glasses had been his mother’s pride and joy.
‘It has to be better, sweetheart, doesn’t it?’ Seth prompted her.
Emma nodded without speaking. Why is everything and everyone taken away from me? she’d said the night of the fire. I don’t do bad things to anyone. Seth had assured that she didn’t.
‘Perhaps,’ Emma said slowly, not looking at him, but staring into the middle distance, ‘I should have had the wood piled up further away. Or locked up. Or …’
‘It’s not your fault, sweetheart. The repairs to the bakery shouldn’t take too long, so Olly says,’ Seth told Emma. He hoped that bit of news might put a smile on her face – he’d never seen her looking so dejected. Olly had provided wood left over from boat-building to replace shelves burnt in the fire. And they’d both laboured after their own days’ work on building them. ‘Two weeks at the most,’ he added. ‘Maybe three.’ Not as soon as Emma would have liked, he knew that, but he was doing his best.
‘Three?’ Emma said.
‘At the most.’
Seth watched, feeling totally helpless, as a tear escaped the corner of her right eye and slid slowly down her cheek. She did nothing to wipe it away. But just as Seth reached in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe it away for her, she took one hand off her glass and swiped at it with the sleeve of her blouse. As though she didn’t want him to touch her.
‘I’ll get some good locks fitted,’ Seth said, his heart heavy that nothing he could do or say seemed to be lifting Emma’s mood. ‘And we’ll move the wood pile further away from the door. And I’ll store the petrol cans under lock and key.’
Emma gave him a half-smile and nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘Sergeant Emms is following up a sighting,’ he went on, quickly. ‘Harry Evans said he saw someone with a lantern creeping along the pavement outside his house, head bent low, when he was coming back from the inn.’
‘Or inns. Harry Evans is always in one inn or another,’ Emma said. ‘Anything Harry Evans saw would have been through the bottom of a glass.’
Possibly, Seth thought. But Harry Evans, for all his drinking ways, was a good man and their nearest neighbour, even though that was on the contour road below. Anyone wanting to get to Mulberry House would have to pass Harry Evans’s front door to get there.
‘If he could remember what he saw in the first place.’ Emma’s voice was flat, dull, uninterested almost. And it frightened him.
‘Harry said it was someone tall,’ Seth went on. ‘And thin. With a hat pulled down over his head almost to his shoulders.’
Emma nodded. ‘I know. You told me before.’ Another tear escaped and she blinked it away this time.
‘I’m sorry you lost the order with the Esplanade Hotel,’ Seth said, having to say something because he couldn’t bear the silences that came between them. ‘But there’ll be others.’
‘Perhaps,’ Emma said. ‘But there’s no point in asking if I can supply Deller’s Café now, is there?’
‘No, it might be best to wait a while.’
Emma had done her best to complete her order on the range in their kitchen, but the tarts had been burned at the edges while the filling remained uncooked. Henry Clarke at the Esplanade Hotel had not only withdrawn his own order, but had said he’d withhold recommending Emma to his business associates until such a time as she could prove she was worthy of recommendation. That had stung Emma – how could it not?
‘Drink up, sweetheart,’ Seth said.
But Emma didn’t drink. She put her glass down on a side-table and leaned back into the couch and began to howl.
Seth rushed to her, sat down beside her and pulled her towards him, wrapping her in his arms. He rocked her the way he’d seen her rocking Fleur. If he’d known any lullabies he would have sung one, but he didn’t.
‘I can’t do anything right,’ Emma said, sniffing into his shirt.
Seth felt the dampness of her tears soaking through, but he didn’t care – Emma had spoken. ‘None of this is your fault, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘The fire was started deliberately, you know that.’
‘It’s not the fire,’ Emma said, pulling away from him a little, but still looking at him. She kept swallowing as though she was having difficulty in finding the words for whatever it was she wanted to say.
‘What is it, then?’
‘I can’t …’ Emma sobbed, ‘… can’t even do what other women do even when they don’t want it to happen.’
‘Sweetheart, you’ve lost me there,’ Seth said.
‘It’s not going to happen,’ Emma said.
‘What isn’t?’
‘A baby, Seth. We’ve been making love since September and we haven’t always done it in the safe time, have we?’
Seth had to admit that they hadn’t. Emma was so desirable he wanted to make love to her all day every day if truth be told, and if he’d had the time and the stamina he would have done. He loved the way she glowed and looked even more beautiful after their loving.
‘And we’re not going to have one yet.’ Emma laid a hand on her stomach.
Ah, women’s things. The curse, as he’d heard it called. He knew now what Emma meant. She had the curse, although he wasn’t going to use that term at this precise moment.
‘Then we’ll have to keep on trying, Emma,’ Seth said. ‘Won’t we?’
‘More often?’ Emma said. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards and spread into a beam of a smile.
Seth heaved a huge sigh of relief – the old Emma was back.
‘As often as you like,’ Seth said. He reached for Emma’s glass and then went to fetch his own before sitting down beside her again. They chinked glasses.
‘To nineteen hundred and twelve and all that it will hold,’ Seth said.
‘And to us,’ Emma said. ‘Always to us.’
‘I don’t want any money,’ Emma said.
Seth had placed a £5 note and a handful of half-crowns on the kitchen table. All she wanted was to be able to get back to her business, but that wasn’t happening just yet.
‘It’s in lieu of what you would have earned if the bakery hadn’t been torched. You would have had two weeks’ profits if you’d been able to bake. I know Olly and I thought it would have been finished by now, but we have both been busy—’
‘It’s all right, Seth,’ Emma interrupted. ‘You don’t have to explain. I know you’re doing all you can.’
Fishing was the best it ever had been for Seth at this time of year and he was making sure he took advantage of it. He left the house without even stopping for breakfast sometimes, and he was never home before nightfall. Now he had the car, he was able to make local deliveries to hotels and cafés within hours of the fish being landed. And further afield, too. He wanted to be able to present good figures to any potential buyers, so he’d told Emma. No matter that the car stank of fish when they went out in it.
Emma: There's No Turning Back Page 9