And now it was getting dark.
Seth had a dead weight of concern in the pit of his stomach, and his breath was coming out all uneven – something had happened to Emma and Fleur, he knew it.
‘Come on! Come on!’ Seth shouted. ‘Mrs Drew! It’s me, Seth!’
The door was opened then, just a crack.
‘Lord almighty, what’s up?’ Mrs Drew opened the door and pulled Seth inside. ‘Whatever it is, we don’t want the neighbours knowin’ our business, do we?’
No he didn’t.
‘Is Emma here? And Fleur?’
‘No. Were you expectin’ them to be?’
Seth told Mrs Drew about arriving home and finding the place cold. No meal prepared or bubbling on the hob. Not that food was his main concern at that moment.
‘Oh, lordy, I don’t know where they are. I’ll just get my coat and come and help you look for them.’ She reached for her coat from the hook behind the door.
‘No, you stay here, in case Emma does come.’
‘You don’ think, do you, that—’
‘I don’t know what to think. But we’re wasting time standing here talking. Emma didn’t tell you anything, did she? Anything she was worried about?’
‘No, it was me what did the talkin’, Seth, and I’m sorry now I did. I reminded ’er there weren’ nobody to treat ’er on her birthday, but maybe she’s gone to see Ruby up at Nase Head House.’
‘Servants can’t just stop and celebrate a friend’s birthday, Mrs Drew,’ Seth said. ‘Ruby’s job would be on the line if she upped and went gallivanting to a café or somewhere similar with Emma.’
‘Well, I’ll send my Edward up there anyway.’
Mrs Drew yelled for Edward, who sprinted off without even taking a jacket.
The gesture heartened Seth – these two, good, people were worth a million of the other sort.
‘There was another thing,’ Mrs Drew said, ‘an’ I’m sorrier than ever now for sayin’ it. I should have me tongue cut out.’
‘What?’ Seth said, more anxious than ever to find Emma and Fleur.
‘I mentioned about havin’ Fleur christened. ’Ow your ma would have wanted that, and Emma’s ma, even though Fleur ain’t ’er blood and all. I told ’er the Reverend Thomson is indisposed and the vicar from over Churston is standin’ in. Doin’ Evensong and Matins – should anyone want to step inside the place.’
Seth didn’t think for a second that Emma would have gone up to St Mary’s to see any vicar about a christening – they were both done with the church and the attitude of those who ran it.
‘That’d be the last place Emma would go,’ Seth said.
‘If you say so. Go back ’ome. ‘Er won’t have gone far, Seth. ‘Er was cuttin’ flowers for the ’ouse when I looked out the dinin’ room window. And don’ I know she’d cut off ’er own arm rather than be without you. She ain’ gone no place, not of ’er own accord. But I’m worried now. Of course …’
Flowers? Could she have taken some to put on her parents’ graves? Because it was her birthday and she wanted to feel near them? Or had she gone to see the vicar from Churston about a christening for Fleur as Mrs Drew had hinted she should?
Seth was aware Mrs Drew was still talking to him, but he’d stopped listening.
‘I’ll let you know as soon as I find her.’
Seth ran for the church. He had to find Emma – and alive. He didn’t want to even entertain the thought that his portrait of her was all he’d have left of her. He barely felt his feet on the cobbles going up Cowtown Hill. He raced past parishioners on their way to Evensong slowly strolling towards the lychgate, and skirted two men who’d stopped to chat on the path.
‘Well,’ he heard one say as he went past, ‘never expected to see him in here again. That’s the youngest Jago, if I’m not mistaken?’
If Seth had had the breath to shout ‘What of it?’ he would have done. He was saving all the breath he had for the vicar.
But the Reverend Prowse hadn’t seen Emma and Fleur.
‘Stay for Evensong and pray that they’ll be returned to you.’
Seth thought he might punch the Reverend Prowse.
‘You pray!’ Seth yelled at him. ‘I’ll do something more practical.’
In fast-fading light, Seth made his way to his ma’s grave. Just one quick word, begging her to help him if her spirit was around, wouldn’t hurt. Not that he really believed in such things.
Fresh flowers! From his own garden.
Emma had picked a huge bunch of the very same flowers and put them on the dining room table the week before. He remembered remarking on the sickly sweet scent of the white blossoms. And Mrs Drew had said the last she’d seen of Emma she’d been picking flowers in the garden.
He turned and saw the hood of Fleur’s perambulator by the back gate. Raced towards it. Empty. He put a hand to the bottom sheet but it was cold, damp even in the evening air. Fleur hadn’t been in the baby carriage for some time. His heart almost stopped then.
‘Emma!’ he called. ‘Where are you?’
But there was no answering call.
He gave himself a stern talking to – think rationally, be calm. If Emma had laid flowers on his ma’s grave, then she would more than likely have laid some for her pa and her ma and Johnnie.
Leaping over graves that were unkempt – not many came to this part of the graveyard behind the church – and stumbling now and then, Seth found Guillaume Le Goff’s grave. Seth had paid for the simple headstone himself because he’d known Emma wouldn’t have been able to afford one.
More flowers.
Seth turned to where he knew Rachel and Johnnie Le Goff’s joint grave was. Ten long strides and he saw her. Was she dead? His own pulse racing in his neck, Seth felt for Emma’s. Weak, but there. Her face was streaked with blood, as was her hair. The blood had all but dried up. And she was cold. So, so cold.
Damn and blast you, Mrs Drew, for putting the idea of a christening for Fleur into Emma’s head. He knelt down beside Emma and took her cold hands in his. She stirred slightly with a moan that seemed to come from deep within her.
Thank God for that.
But Fleur? Where was she?
Chapter Eleven
‘Don’t move, sweetheart,’ Seth said, his lips to Emma’s ear, knowing how ridiculous his words were, but he hoped Emma would hear his voice, feel his breath against her skin. ‘I’ll be right back.’
Fleur. He had to find her. And soon. And he was going to need help.
Seth raced around the side of the church, tripping over a watering can that clattered noisily against a headstone as he went, but just managed to save himself from falling completely. He burst into the church where people were settling themselves in pews and the vicar was walking towards the lectern.
‘Help!’ Seth cried. ‘I need help! My wife’s lying injured and my daughter’s missing.’
Stunned faces stared back at Seth.
‘You’ll not get it from me,’ someone said, but Seth couldn’t be sure who.
‘Nor me,’ someone else said.
Both were men’s voices.
‘You’re holding up the service.’
A woman’s voice this time.
Seth drew breath ready to ask the speakers what they thought they were doing in a holy place if they didn’t have a Christian bone in their bodies, when the vicar spoke.
‘There are hurricane lamps on the back pew,’ he said, pointing. ‘Mr Wallis, will you be so kind as to light them.’
The churchwarden, still in the process of handing out Order of Service books, said, ‘Yes, Reverend. Right away.’
‘And as for the rest of you,’ the vicar went on, ‘I’m shocked and saddened by your response. I take back what I said to you earlier, sir, and will lead by example. I thought it was a domestic dispute of some kind. I’ll come and help you look for your daughter.’ And with that he strode down the aisle, black robes swishing as he went. A handful of men and one woman followed him.
A lamp in his hand, Seth rushed back to Emma. She’d moved slightly since last he’d been with her. Again he checked her pulse. Still there, but flickering. He hoped it was merely the shock of what had happened to her and nothing more serious.
Seth was torn between looking for Fleur and staying with Emma. He took off his jacket it and laid it gently over Emma’s shoulders, tucking her icy hands in underneath.
The vicar and those who had found it in their consciences to help, were covering the churchyard in what Seth thought looked almost like a military procedure. The moon was up now and he prayed that its light would catch on the white baby bonnet with the swansdown trim Emma loved to dress Fleur in – if she was still wearing it – and that they’d find her soon, sleeping cosily in a bed of fallen leaves. He didn’t dare think that something more sinister might have happened to her – that perhaps Caroline Prentiss had survived the sinking of the Titanic and that she’d paid someone to beat up Emma and kidnap Fleur. He knew Emma would fight to the end to protect his daughter, and it looked now as though she almost had.
‘No luck yet, sir,’ the vicar said, returning to Seth.
He bent low over the barely conscious Emma.
‘Your wife’s in a bad way.’
‘I know that!’ Seth said over-loudly, he knew, but adrenalin was coursing through him now. He’d never known such fear in his life. ‘But she is at least alive. I can’t be so sure about my daughter.’
‘Does she walk yet?’ the vicar said. ‘Mr Wallis says he’s found an empty perambulator by the back gate.’
‘Yes. She can pull herself up to a standing position and take a step or two.’
‘So she can’t have gone far by her own efforts,’ the vicar said, laying a hand on Seth’s shoulder. ‘My congregation is doing everything they can.’
‘Some of them,’ Seth said, as a gaggle of parishioners reached the lychgate, obviously deciding that Evensong was over before it had ever got started tonight, and – having no intention of helping a murderer’s brother, a smuggler’s son – were going home. ‘I appreciate your help,’ he told the vicar. He held out his hand, ‘Seth Jago. If you want to shake it.’
The vicar took Seth’s hand and shook it briefly, but firmly.
‘I would have preferred to make your acquaintance in happier circumstances, Mr Jago. And I can’t pretend I don’t know your family name. The reactions of my temporary flock make sense to me now.’
‘Yes, and none of this is finding my daughter. Can someone be sent to tell my friend Olly Underwood? He lives on New Road. I’ll need help getting Emma home.’
‘Consider it done,’ the vicar said.
‘Emma! Emma! Open your eyes.’
Where was she? It felt as though her head was bound tightly in a thick blanket of some sort. And her eyes when she tried to open them felt heavy, swollen. She remembered crying and crying when she’d been told her mama’s and Johnnie’s bodies had been found below the cliffs at Berry Head, and her eyes had swollen with her tears then. But she hadn’t been crying, had she?
Emma tried to turn on her side because the back of her neck ached so.
‘Argh.’
Even saying that little word was painful. What had happened to her? And that wasn’t Seth’s voice calling her, telling her to open her eyes.
Her mouth drier than ash, Emma attempted to lick her lips. But her tongue seemed swollen too.
‘Wat …’ she began, but couldn’t finish the word.
But whoever it was who was with her, had understood. She felt a hand gently hold the back of her head, then lift it from the pillow as a glass of water was raised to her lips.
‘Just a little sip, Emma, to start with.’
Emma sipped, but swallowing was difficult. She coughed. There was something in her mouth. Earth? Grass? She tried to raise a hand so she could finger it out, but it seemed she had no strength in her arms at all. Instead, she opened her mouth as wide as she could so whoever it was who was with her might see she had some obstruction. Her heart began to race – was she going to choke?
‘Good girl. I’m with you now, Emma, and I’ll examine you just as soon as you are a little stronger.’
She felt a finger in her mouth, gently removing whatever obstruction was there. Ah. Emma knew who it was now. Dr Shaw. She felt herself physically relax now she knew she was in his safe hands.
‘Thank …’ she said. Again, she was unable to complete what it was she wanted to say.
And what she wanted to ask. But it would have to wait. Her eyes were being bathed with something warm now – it felt oily. And then her nose got the same treatment which tickled a bit and she coughed slightly.
A warm flannel was pressed to her lips, softening them. She wriggled her jaw and the movement felt good, as though she was coming back to life.
‘That’s better,’ Dr Shaw said. ‘Good girl.’
Girl? Girl? She wasn’t a girl. She was a woman, with a daughter. A little girl.
‘Fleur?’ Emma was suddenly hit by a flashback. Fleur asleep on her lap. Three girls menacing her. Her arms around Fleur protecting her. Then blows from a stick. Falling. Falling. Falling.
Emma opened her eyes now. It felt like tearing a dressing off a crusted wound to do so and she winced. Her eyes scanned the room. It was in semi-darkness, just one oil lamp burning on the dresser. But her oil lamp. Her dresser. Her own drawing room. She struggled to sit up, and the doctor helped her.
‘Your husband’s still out looking,’ Dr Shaw said. He smoothed Emma’s hair back off her forehead, touched her gently with a finger, but the touch still made her jump with pain. ‘I’ll clean this and dress it in a minute.’
‘Looking?’
‘For your daughter.’
‘For Fleur?’
That couldn’t be right. Fleur had been in her arms and she’d been holding her so tightly – so tightly that for a second or two she’d thought she might suffocate the child. She hadn’t had she?
‘Yes. Mr Underwood is helping and so is Edward Drew. And a few parishioners, I understand. Seth brought you home in the car and telephoned me, and then went straight back to continue the search once I arrived here.’
‘But she was in my arms. I remember that.’ Emma’s heart began to race and blood pounded past her ears. And then it was as if the racing and the pounding stopped and she’d forgotten how to breathe. She felt faint.
‘Lie back,’ Dr Shaw said, helping her. He put fingers to a wrist, checking her pulse.
‘No!’ Emma said, struggling to sit again. ‘I have to help.’
‘Not in the state you’re in,’ Dr Shaw told her. ‘You should have gone to the cottage hospital but your husband was adamant that you didn’t. But you can talk to me. A little at a time, Emma. If you can. It might help.’
Help Fleur. Emma would do anything to help Fleur. Seth would be devastated if something had happened to her.
‘Three girls,’ Emma said. ‘The same school. I know one of them, but I can’t remember her name.’
Emma had to stop speaking because her mouth was dry, her throat sore. She reached for the glass of water and the doctor helped her raise it to her lips. She shook her head a little trying to collect her thoughts into some sort of sensible order. She was confused that she could remember Fleur and being hit with a heavy stick, but not the name of the person who had done it.
‘Girls?’ the doctor said. ‘I hardly think girls could inflict such damage.’
Emma swallowed. Why didn’t he believe her?
She took another sip of water.
‘They were!’
‘Ssh, ssh, keep calm. Perhaps this would be best left until morning. You can tell the constable then. And by then we must hope little Fleur has been found safe and well.’
Hope? What was the doctor saying? Fleur
would be found.
She had to be.
‘We’re done here, Seth,’ Olly said. ‘I don’t think there’s a blade of grass we haven’t turned over, or a pile of leaves.’
Seth pressed his hands to his mouth. He didn’t want to say what he was thinking – that someone had taken Fleur. Had it all been in Caroline Prentiss’s plan anyway, to have Fleur abducted then taken out to join her in America? To have Seth’s money and, eventually, his child too?
‘So, what do you suggest?’ Seth said, finding his voice at last. ‘That we all go home and sleep soundly in our beds without a care until morning?’
‘I’ll forget you said that,’ Olly said. ‘It’s only fear talking. Edward’s going down Spratt Lane, inch by inch, with a lamp, and the vicar’s doing Beggar’s Hill. We’re doing all we can.’
‘You know I’m going to kill whoever’s taken Fleur and done this to Emma, don’t you?’
Olly clapped a hand to Seth’s mouth.
‘Shut up, you fool,’ Olly hissed. ‘With your family background, do you really want anyone to hear you say that?’
Seth pushed Olly’s hand away. ‘It’s only the same as any man who loves his wife and child would say.’
‘Yes, but you’re not any man around here, are you? I risk my skin sometimes standing up for you. I don’t want to risk it further should a body be found in a back alley behind a pub in the morning. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
Oh yes, Seth understood. Sophie Ellison had been found dead in a back alley behind a pub and his brother, Carter, found guilty and hanged for killing her.
‘It wouldn’t look good in the circumstances, would it?’ Olly put an arm around Seth and squeezed his shoulder.
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘You know I am, you stubborn bugger. So, I’m sticking with you all night. But that’s got to be back at Mulberry House now. We’re serving no further purpose here, and the constable is mustering up help. They’ll be out all night. Emma needs you.’
Emma: There's No Turning Back Page 17