by Valerie Wood
Mrs Brewer appeared at the door to announce that luncheon was about to be served and, shaking her head and smiling, said that she had never known such goings on in all the time she had worked there.
‘There will be changes, no doubt, Mrs Brewer,’ Mary agreed. ‘There will be some joy and laughter in this house at last.’
Emily could hardly eat, though the food was tempting. Mrs Castle hadn’t lost her light touch with pastry, but she was trembling so much and her senses whirled as she thought of what was in front of her. How could she manage such a great house? How could she run an estate, even with Mary? It just wasn’t possible.
‘The estate manager will stay on, of course,’ Mary was saying. ‘If we are agreeable, that is. He has been here for many years and we would be wise to take his advice. I took the liberty of sounding out Mrs Castle and Mrs Brewer and they both want to stay here with you until they retire and then perhaps you would like Ginny to take over as housekeeper. Some of the other servants left when Mr Francis died and Mrs Brewer has taken on new staff.’
Emily sighed. That at least was a relief. It would be difficult to have servants who had known her as a servant also, Jane and Brown the groom, and she supposed that Jane had long gone away to have Brown’s baby. And Ginny would be her companion as much as a housekeeper.
‘I’m not used to running a household,’ she resisted weakly, ‘let alone an estate so large.’
‘But Emily,’ Philip interrupted, ‘don’t be fearful. You ran Creek Farm whilst I was away and managed it very well. This is just bigger, that’s all, and you will have plenty of people to help you.’
She smiled; how he teased. There could be no comparison between Elmswell Manor and Creek Farm. At the farm, life had been hard but casual and simple, whereas Elmswell Manor when she had known it had been so very formal. Then she reconsidered. But was that because of the people in it? Because Mrs Francis was so grand? She gazed up at the paintings on the dining-room wall and saw Mr Francis’s ancestors looking down at her. What would they have thought, she wondered, of a servant girl living in their house and running their estate? She felt their pompous, arrogant gaze and suddenly laughed. They wouldn’t have liked it, she decided.
After luncheon Mrs Brewer invited her upstairs to inspect the room they had suggested for her. ‘You may use another if you prefer it, Miss Emily,’ said the housekeeper. ‘But this was always the best room with the loveliest views. The one Mr Francis preferred.’
She nodded, unable to say much. She was feeling very strange and rather lightheaded. It was indeed a lovely room and it had been decorated since she had last seen it. Instead of the heavy mahogany furniture which Mr Francis had inherited from his parents, someone, and she suspected it might have been Mary, had removed the chests of drawers and the heavy tester bed and filled it with lighter, more feminine furniture and had draped the windows with muslin and silk curtains.
She started to shake. Coming upstairs upset her, bringing back the memory of when she had last slept in the house as Mrs Purnell’s maid, and of the consequences of that visit. She sat down abruptly on a chair.
‘Are you unwell, Miss Emily?’ Mrs Brewer asked in concern. ‘Has the shock of it all been too much for you?’
Emily shook her head. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘It’s not that, Mrs Brewer. It’s just that – well, in truth, I’m reminded of the last time I was here – at Miss Deborah’s wedding and it has very unpleasant associations for me.’
Mrs Brewer gazed down at her. ‘I do understand, my dear,’ she said quietly. ‘We were so sorry that such a dreadful thing happened under our roof, but you must try to put it behind you. Will you come with me? I want to show you something.’
She led Emily out of the room and along the corridor and up a short flight of steps to the landing where the guest rooms were and which Emily remembered so well. At least, she thought she did, yet there was something different. A door which she didn’t remember was midway along the corridor.
Mrs Brewer opened it and stepped through. ‘Mr Francis changed all of this after your trial. He said he wanted to eradicate all memory of that dreadful man.’ She opened another door to a room which Emily was sure was the one she had stayed in. But within the room was a wall full of shelves, piled high with lavender-scented bedlinen. Where the adjoining door to Mrs Purnell’s room had been was now a wallpapered wall and standing by a table next to the fire, which had flat irons heating on it, was a young and flushed maid folding up a freshly ironed sheet.
‘We needed another linen room,’ Mrs Brewer said by way of explanation, ‘and we can get to this landing easily from the back stairs. No need for you to come through here at all, Miss Emily.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Brewer,’ she said gratefully. ‘Thank you so very much.’
Later in the day, she strolled with Philip around the garden. Snowdrops drooped beneath the hedges but in their place tips of yellow primroses showed beneath rosettes of green leaves. ‘Have you laid all the ghosts?’ he asked. ‘Have you rid yourself of the bad memories?’
‘Yes. They are fading fast. It’s as if those terrible things happened to someone else, to someone I once knew. But I am still overwhelmed by Mr Francis’s generosity and I can’t think why he should consider me in this way.’
‘He told me once when we were discussing your predicament, that you reminded him so much of Mary Edwards that he could almost imagine that it might have been her going through the conflict which you were suffering.’ He paused, adding, ‘Had Roger Francis been a different kind of man, then she too might well have been abandoned with an illegitimate child.’
‘So it was because of his love for Mary,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ he said lightly. ‘How surprising it is what men will do for love!’ He looked down at her, an anxious expression on his face. ‘Have you made a decision, Emily? I must know.’
She drew away from him and lowered her head. ‘I know well what you have done for me, Philip, and it is because I love you that I cannot ruin your life by becoming your wife. You must think of your future. One day you’ll meet someone of your own class, someone you will be proud to introduce as your wife and to bear your children.’
A sob caught in her throat. ‘I will always love you, but even though I now have riches it doesn’t alter what I have been, what I am. A servant girl and an ex-convict! Think of your parents and your sisters, think of how they would feel if you married me.’
He gazed stonily into the distance. ‘Then I might just as well have left you out in Australia,’ he said bitterly, ‘for all my plans have come to nothing.’
‘I am doing this for you,’ she whispered, ‘because I love you.’
‘Do not say that you love me!’ She heard the anger and distress in his voice. ‘If you loved me you wouldn’t put me through this torment!’ He turned on his heel, ‘Please excuse me,’ and left her standing alone.
She felt the warmth of sunshine on her head, but there was only an icy coldness in her heart. I’ve lost him! She watched him striding back to the house. What have I done?
Philip sent a message that he wouldn’t be down for supper, that he had some papers to attend to, and later Emily sat with Mary whilst Deborah and Sam played cards at the other side of the drawing room and Ginny stitched a piece of linen. Deborah shrieked whenever she had a winning hand and Sam guffawed.
Mary smiled at their noisy enthusiasm and commented, ‘Roger told me that he hoped that one day Elmswell Manor would echo to the sound of children’s voices and the patter of small feet. He was very fond of children and wished that he could have had grandchildren. But’, she sighed, ‘it wasn’t to be.’ She glanced at Emily with a question in her eyes. ‘Perhaps one day his wish will come true?’
Emily felt as if she was made of ice. How could she tell this dear, kind woman that she had refused Philip for the last time?
Just before bedtime Philip appeared downstairs. ‘Mrs Edwards,’ he said formally. ‘I shall be away very early in the morning, my p
arents are expecting me, and so I will wish you goodbye now and thank you warmly for your hospitality.’
‘You must go so soon?’ There was a note of surprise in her voice. ‘But thanks are due to you, Mr Linton,’ she said warmly, ‘for bringing our dear Emily safely home.’ She gazed questioningly at him. ‘We shall see you again very soon, I trust?’
He bowed, but didn’t make a reply.
He turned to Emily and taking her hand he briefly kissed her fingertips. Neither of them spoke, but Emily gazed at him with such fullness in her heart that she felt it would burst. Am I being foolish? She saw misery and hurt in his eyes. Am I making a mistake? I only want to do what is best for him, I love him so much.
She lay tearful and sleepless in her bed that night, thinking of the momentous events of the day and of Philip leaving the next morning. I am so thankful to be back and to be given so much, but without Philip beside me it will mean nothing. I will be as a pauper without him. He’s leaving. He’s angry with me. I might never see him again and I can’t bear that! What shall I do?
She tossed and turned, dreaming and waking with a million things running through her mind. She dreamt she was back on the convict ship. She was ironed and shackled in the darkness of the hold, the ship tossed on momentous seas and she could hear the sound of women crying. She called Philip’s name again and again, but there was no answer and she felt as if she had been abandoned.
She woke again just as night slipped away from day and heard the first clear call of a blackbird, a sound which she had so longed to hear when she was at the other side of the world. She listened to its crystal clear beauty and waited for the answering call from the other early birds, yet there was no pleasure in the sound as once there would have been. Then came the repeated rhythmic melody of the song thrush and the coo-coo of pigeons and below that she could hear the whisper of voices and the jangle of harness.
She threw back the bedcovers and padded to the window and looked out. A grey mist was dispersing above the grass and by the front door a groom was adjusting the stirrups on a black stallion and talking quietly to him was Philip.
He’s going! In the cold light of day, the enormity of her decision came to her and she panicked. I must stop him! She snatched her robe from the bed and sped downstairs, past a startled and sleepy maid who was emerging from the lower stairs with a dustpan in her hand.
She struggled with the heavy front door and as she stepped outside, saw Philip trotting half-way down the drive. I’m too late!
He stopped and bent to adjust the leather on his stirrups and ignoring the fact that she was in her bedclothes and barefoot, she flew down the steps and the drive after him.
‘Philip!’ she called. ‘Philip. Don’t go!’
He turned in the saddle. ‘Emily! I tried not to wake anyone. I thought you would still be sleeping.’
‘You’re leaving!’
‘I told you I was leaving early,’ he said bluntly. ‘Besides, there is no reason for me to delay any longer now I have brought you safely home. You have made up your mind about your future, and mine, seemingly. Why should I stay?’
She put her hand up to his and held it. ‘Because I need you. Because my life is nothing without you.’ Her eyes held his, though she could hardly see for tears. ‘I am so foolish. Please forgive me. I don’t deserve your love.’
He stroked the top of her head and said gently, ‘My parents are expecting me. What would I tell them?’
‘Go tomorrow – or the day after – and tell them –’, there was a sob in her throat, ‘– tell them that the rich heiress who loves you wouldn’t let you come any sooner.’
He dismounted and wrapping the reins around his wrist, bent down and kissed her tenderly on the lips. ‘And what then, Miss Hawkins?’
She smiled and blinked away the tears and returned his kiss, whispering, ‘Bring them back with you for the wedding, Mr Linton.’
THE END