The Miller's Daughter

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘So,’ Emma said gently, trying to pull Bridget’s reminiscing back to the present, ‘Leonard did not die in the war?’

  Bridget bit her lip and twisted her hands in her lap. ‘No, no. But – oh, Emma, you won’t give him away, will you, if I tell you? Promise?’

  ‘Give him away? I don’t understand.’

  Bridget was silent a moment as if struggling with her conscience. ‘He – he deserted. Goodness knows how he evaded capture by either the enemy or our side, but he did. So, legally he is dead.’

  ‘Did he change his name?’

  Bridget shrugged her shoulders. ‘Didn’t seem a lot of point really. Smith is a name other people use to become incognito.’

  Emma could see the reasoning in that. ‘Did he remarry?’

  ‘Oh no. He lives with Helen, Micky’s mother, but they never married. At least as far as I know.’

  ‘So why is Micky living with you?’

  Now there was puzzlement in the clear blue eyes. ‘Leonard said he wanted him to come to live in the country. He told me the lad had asthma in the city. Leicester, they live now. But . . .’ a small frown appeared on her forehead, ‘I’ve never seen the slightest sign of Micky having asthma. He seems a particularly healthy lad to me.’

  ‘Mm,’ Emma said and there was a wealth of meaning in the sound.

  ‘What? What are you thinking, Emma?’

  ‘And Leonard comes here? To see you?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course. Two or three times a year. Why?’

  ‘Then he knows all about me. About me and William Metcalfe and that we have a daughter?’

  ‘Well, yes. He’s happy for you. Said he never meant you any harm.’

  ‘Really?’ The word was laced with sarcasm. ‘Then why did he let me think he was dead?’

  ‘He thought it best . . .’ Bridget’s voice trailed away. ‘By the end of the war he’d got Helen. He met her in France. I think she sort of – hid him, you know. And they’d got Micky by then too.’ She flapped her hand. ‘But of course you must have realized that, because he’s a similar age to Lottie. When I told him about you and William and your little girl, then he said things were best left the way they were for all concerned. Those were his very words, Emma.’

  In fairness, Emma thought, it would have made things very awkward if her husband had returned from the dead – for all of them.

  Emma sighed as she stood up. ‘Well, perhaps for once I am misjudging Leonard. I thought he’d sent young Micky here for a reason.’

  ‘What? What reason could there be?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sniffed derisively. ‘But I know Leonard of old and I’m going to stop Lottie seeing Micky.’

  ‘Oh, Emma, Micky’s going to be so upset. He really likes Lottie.’

  As she walked back down the path towards the gate, she was acutely aware of Bridget watching her from the doorway, a troubled look on her sweet face.

  ‘You’re not to see Micky Smith anymore, Lottie.’

  The girl’s bright eyes were wide and her generous mouth dropped open. ‘Not – see – Micky? But – but why? He’s nice. I thought you liked him. Dad did. You got on like a house on fire, didn’t you?’ Her frantic gaze was darting back and forth between her parents.

  Emma bit her lip and avoided meeting her daughter’s eyes. Resolutely she kept to her decision, but inside what she was doing was tearing her apart. ‘No. You’re too young to be having a boyfriend.’ As the words left her mouth, the excuse sounded weak even to her own ears. She went on relentlessly, knowing she was only making matters worse, not better. ‘You ought to be concentrating on your school work. If your O level results are good, you’ll be staying on into the Sixth Form.’

  ‘So will Micky. Just because I have a boyfriend doesn’t mean I won’t work hard. And I’ll still help you in the shop on a Saturday.’ The girl’s face was growing pinker by the minute until her cheeks were fiery with anger. ‘Why, Mum, just tell me why?’

  When Emma made no answer, the girl turned resentful eyes upon her father. ‘Dad? Do you know what this is all about?’

  William ran his hand distractedly through his hair. Of course he knew. There were dark shadows under Emma’s eyes for they had sat up talking half the night and even then sleep had been impossible. He didn’t agree with the way Emma had decided to deal with the situation. He thought Lottie should be told the truth, the whole truth. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do. Emma had been adamant.

  When she received no answer from either of her parents, the girl whirled around and headed for the back door. ‘Well, I won’t stop seeing him, so there. And you can’t make me. And if you do then – then I’ll – I’ll run away.’

  The door slammed behind her and they heard her running feet crossing the yard making for the gap in the hedge, through the orchard towards Sarah’s cottage to lay her head against the older woman’s plump shoulder and sob out her heart. Sarah would be on her side, Lottie would be thinking, Sarah would tell her why her mother was being so unreasonable.

  But Sarah already knew what it was all about and Emma had sworn her to secrecy.

  Forty-Five

  ‘She’s late home again. The school bus went through half an hour ago and she wasn’t on it. Where is she?’

  ‘I’ll give you three guesses,’ William said flatly.

  Emma twisted her apron through her fingers. ‘You don’t agree with what I’m doing, do you?’ she blurted out.

  ‘You know I don’t. You should have told her the truth from the start. This way, you’re driving them together even faster. You know what youngsters are these days. The more you tell them not to do something, the more they want to do just that very thing.’

  Emma passed the back of her hand wearily across her forehead. ‘Oh, I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘I know it means telling her that we weren’t married when she was born and that, maybe, we’re not even now, but . . .’

  Emma sighed heavily. ‘I really didn’t want her to have to know.’

  ‘She’ll have to sooner or later,’ he said reasonably. ‘It’s all part of growing up.’ He put his arm about her shoulders. ‘You can’t keep them young and innocent. You can’t protect them for ever. And I seem to remember you saying not so long ago that there were worse things than being illegitimate.’

  Emma nodded. ‘Yes, I did and I suppose you’re right.’ She laid her head against his shoulder. ‘But I dread telling her.’

  He gave her shoulders a little squeeze. ‘We’ll do it together. Tonight.’

  But by nightfall, Lottie still had not returned home and Emma was almost frantic with worry. ‘She must be with him. At his home – Bridget wouldn’t see anything wrong in it.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell Bridget that you were going to stop them seeing each other?’

  ‘Well, yes, but she’s a very old lady now, William, and maybe—’

  Emma made a sudden movement, snatched the keys to the truck from the hook on the back of the door, where they always hung.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Bridget’s.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No, you stay here in case she comes home.’ She pulled open the back door. ‘I’ll phone you from there. I don’t think Bridget will be on the phone, but I remember seeing a phone box outside the little shop in the village.’

  Most of the houses were in darkness as Emma drove into Thirsby but as she drew up outside Bridget’s cottage she could see that a light still burned in the sitting room window. Emma walked up the paved path to the low front door and rapped on it with the brass door knocker. She didn’t want to frighten the old lady at this time of night, but she had to find Lottie. She heard the rasp of a bolt being pulled back and as the door opened, Emma opened her mouth to say, ‘Is she here? Have you seen Lottie?’ But the words never came and she merely stared at the person standing there, her mouth gaping open. The blood pounded in her ears. Her legs trembled and threatened to give way beneath her.
>
  ‘You!’ She hardly recognized the strangulated croak as her own voice.

  ‘Hello, Emma,’ he said smoothly, almost as if he had been expecting her. ‘How are you?’

  ‘How . . .? How am I?’ Her composure was returning a little, but with it came an almost uncontrollable anger. ‘How dare you? How dare you stand there and ask me how I am?’

  His hair was a little grey at the temples and the neat moustache was liberally peppered with white hairs. The handsome face had a few more lines than she remembered and there was a purple tinge to his nose, but it was still the same charming, smooth-talking Leonard; the man who was perhaps, she supposed with a sudden shudder, in the eyes of the law, still her husband.

  ‘Do come in.’ His grin broadened and his eyes glittered. It was a look she remembered well. Oh, how very well she remembered that expression. He was up to something, she knew. He had been expecting her.

  In the sitting room, he said, ‘Please sit down. Can I get you a drink?’

  Emma ignored his offer and the question she had been going to ask Bridget burst from her lips. ‘Where is she? Where’s Lottie? And don’t pretend you don’t know anything about it.’

  The smirk on his face sent a shiver down Emma’s spine. ‘I wouldn’t pretend with you, my dear Emma.’

  He sat down with a nonchalant air of satisfaction that Emma found more disturbing, more frightening, than she had ever felt of his anger, his swift changes of mood.

  She sank down on to the sofa, her gaze fixed upon him. ‘You do know where my daughter is, don’t you, Leonard?’ she asked quietly now.

  ‘She’s quite safe, Emma, my dear. I wouldn’t harm her. In fact, I’d do everything in my power to keep her very safe. After all, she’s part of my family.’ Sarcasm lined his tone.

  ‘What – what do you mean? She’s no relation to you.’

  ‘Oh no?’ His lips stretched and his eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps not a blood relative, no, but very soon, she’ll be my daughter-in-law.’

  Emma felt the blood draining from her face and the room seemed to tilt. She put her hand to her head and lay back against the cushions. She felt Leonard pushing a glass into her hand.

  ‘Here, have a sip of brandy. I never took you for the fainting type, Emma.’ There was little real concern in his tone, but she took the brandy and sipped it. The sharp taste revived her and warmth crept back into her. She had never felt this way in the whole of her life and then she remembered that she had not eaten since lunch time and it was now almost midnight.

  ‘Leonard, what do you mean? Where is Lottie? Please tell me.’

  It went against the grain to have to beg anything of this man, but her maternal love for her daughter made her bury her pride.

  ‘Micky and Lottie have gone away to be married.’ His lip curled. ‘And then one day, the mill will be Micky’s. My son will own Forrest’s Mill.’

  Emma gasped. ‘So that’s what all this is about.’

  ‘Yes, it is. I’ve waited a long time to get my revenge on your old man – and you for that matter. I came back here, you know, after the war.’

  ‘Came back? When?’

  ‘VE day, when the village was having one big party in the market place. I saw you with him, with Metcalfe, and I saw your little girl. I knew then I couldn’t come back. It was too soon after the war to be safe. I wouldn’t have put it past Metcalfe to turn me in.’

  ‘Turn you in? Oh, you mean because you’d deserted?’

  ‘Desertion in the field was a serious crime. There was this big push, you see. It was chaos, absolute hell. More than half my unit were killed. I was in a crater with only one other feller left alive and he was in a bad way. I’d had enough. So, I left my dog tags on a body that was so smashed up it was unrecognizable and I legged it out of there. I roamed around France for a while and then I met Helen. She was trying to run her small farm single-handedly. Her husband had been in the resistance and had been shot by the Germans. I worked on the farm and eventually – ’ he grinned now, ‘moved in with her. It was the perfect cover until the war was well and truly over.’

  Emma was only half-listening but enough had penetrated her stupefied brain to ask, ‘So why have you come back here now?’

  His face was suddenly ugly. ‘I want what is rightfully mine. I never could stand to be beaten, not at cards, nor in a deal, not at anything.’ The sudden smile was vulpine. ‘By the way, it was very good of your lover-boy to restore the mill for me. I must remember to thank him personally.’

  Anger gave Emma back her strength. She leapt up, standing over him, shaking her fist in his face. ‘You’ll never get my mill, Leonard Smith. Over my dead body—’

  ‘That’s exactly how I will get it, or at least how Micky will. It’s not that I want to live in it, or run it. I’m doing quite nicely in the Midlands. Oh no,’ he stood up slowly and stood close to her, ‘I just want to see justice done.’

  ‘Justice?’ Emma hissed. ‘What about you? What about you, the deserter? There ought to be justice in that.’

  His smile was confident. ‘There was a case two years ago where a man was brought to trial for desertion in the war. They’d only just traced him. The case was dropped. Lack of evidence. And with a name like mine? Smith? Who could possibly prove anything?’

  ‘I could. I’ve got the telegrams and the letters from the War Office.’

  ‘And I’d tell them I came back after the war to find you had married another man while I was serving my country. You’d be had for bigamy.’

  Suddenly, it was a war of nerves, a battle of wills.

  ‘What about you? Haven’t you married Helen?’

  He laughed. ‘Oh no. We’re not married. And neither are you, Emma, my dear. At least – not to Metcalfe.’

  She tried another tack. ‘Lottie – and Micky – they can’t get married. They’re too young. They need parental permission.’

  Leonard’s smile was a sneer. ‘Never heard of Gretna Green, Emma? They’re on their way there right now. On a train bound for the Scottish border.’

  ‘I’ll go after them. I’ll stop it . . .’ Her voice rose and they heard a creak of floorboards from the room above them.

  ‘That’s Mother. Damn it, Emma, you’ve woken her.’

  ‘I’ll wake the whole bloody village, if I have to,’ Emma screamed, deliberately now. ‘You’ll not get away with this, Leonard!’

  They both heard the querulous voice from the top of the narrow stairs. ‘Who’s there? Leonard, are you there?’

  He opened the door of the sitting room and called out to her. ‘Go back to bed, Mother.’ But Emma grabbed his arm, pulled him out of the way and pushed past him into the narrow hallway.

  ‘Bridget.’ She looked up the stairs to see the old woman standing there, her hair ruffled, her thin bare feet poking out from beneath her long cotton nightdress.

  ‘Emma?’ There was surprise in her tone. ‘Is that you?’ She started down the stairs. ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

  Behind Emma, Leonard said harshly. ‘Mother, go back to bed. It has nothing to do with you.’

  With asperity, Bridget said, ‘Be quiet, Leonard. I’ll not be ordered about in my own house,’ and moments later she was downstairs demanding an explanation, quite unaware of the unusual appearance she was presenting to Emma. Without her make-up and the blonde hair that was, Emma realized now, a wig, the old woman actually did look the age she must be. Her own hair was thin and wispy white and her face was lined with tiny wrinkles. Without the frilly, high-necked blouses or dresses she always wore to hide it, Emma could see now that the skin around her neck sagged in folds. But her eyes were bright and knowingly sharp.

  ‘Come along, Leonard. I’m waiting.’

  Emma dragged her gaze away from Bridget back to Leonard and then back and forth between them. ‘Do you mean you don’t know what’s going on, Bridget? Does she?’ This to Leonard, then she turned back to Bridget, ‘Do you know where Micky and Lottie are?’

  ‘I know where Micky is. He
’s gone on one of these survival courses. He’s camping somewhere in the Lake District.’ Now Bridget stared at her son. ‘Isn’t he?’

  ‘According to Leonard,’ Emma said, ‘Micky and Lottie are on their way to Gretna Green to be married.’

  Bridget gasped, her wrinkled hand fluttering to her throat. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. They can’t. They’re only children. Can’t you stop them, Leonard?’

  Emma bent over her and said slowly and deliberately, ‘Apparently, it was all Leonard’s idea – to get his hands on Forrest’s Mill. My mill. But if he thinks that, he’s got another think coming.’ Now the initial shock of seeing her husband once more, of learning of his devious manipulation of her young and naive daughter, had worn off, Emma was once more in control of her emotions and her resolve. She faced Leonard. ‘No one, no one, will ever take my grandfather’s mill from me.’

  Leonard smirked and said with a confidence that sent a fresh sliver of ice down her spine. ‘Even you can’t live forever, Emma – ’ he paused and then added pointedly, ‘Smith.’

  Emma drove through the darkness back to Marsh Thorpe. There had been nothing more she could do. Not even Bridget could move her son to put a stop to his plans.

  Emma had spoken briefly to William from the call box outside the village shop, reassuring him that she had found out what had happened, that Lottie had come to no physical harm.

  ‘But what is it? Where is she?’ Even down the crackling telephone wire, she could hear the anguish in his voice.

  ‘I can’t explain now. I’m coming straight home.’

  He was waiting for her in the yard, holding a storm lantern. Almost before she had pulled the vehicle to a halt, he was opening the driver’s door. ‘Are you all right? Where’s Lottie? Isn’t she with you?’

  Stiffly, Emma climbed down. Tiredness washed over her in waves. She put her arms about William and leant her head against him. ‘Oh, Em,’ he said huskily. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’