To Turn Full Circle

by Linda Mitchelmore

  Copyright © 2012 Linda Mitchelmore

  Published 2012 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choclitpublishing.com

  The right of Linda Mitchelmore to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is availablefrom the British Library

  ISBN-978-1-906931-62-9

  For my son, James, and my daughter, Sarah – ever my shining stars.

  And in memory of my father, Olmen Arthur, who always believed in me.

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  More Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  Acknowledgements

  No road is long – so the saying has it – with good company. And on my particular journey to publication I’ve met so many lovely people it would be impossible to list them all – another book would be needed!

  Huge thanks must go to June Tate for inviting me along on writing holidays in Italy and Corfu; so much fine wine and food, so much laughter, so many good friends made. But I did learn something, June – and here’s the proof.

  When Katie Fforde awarded me her bursary it was a massive boost to my confidence that hey, maybe I could do this. Thanks, Katie.

  All writers need writing ‘buddies’, I think, and I have two of the very best in Jan Wright and Jennie Bohnet – thank you, and merci.

  My cousin, David Haas, dragged me kicking and screaming from my ‘loom’ to embrace technology and the internet – I will be forever in your debt, boyo.

  Brixham Writers might be a group of the smallest order but it is perfectly formed and I’m proud to be amongst you, girls and boys.

  The Romantic Novelists’ Association gets my thanks, too. Joining you has been money well spent, and you opened up my world with your friendship and encouragement – especially my most consistent mentor of all, bella Stella – she knows who she is.

  And now to Choc Lit – my destination, but by no means the end of the journey: my life as a novelist is just beginning. Thank you one and all for taking me into your fold.

  You know that favourite chocolate you save until last to eat? Well, my husband, in this list, is that chocolate. Thanks, Rog, for fielding the ’phone for me, for copious cups of coffee, and for never, ever, as I battled on to publication, for even thinking it might be a good idea if I gave up. I wouldn’t have anyway!

  Chapter One

  ‘Well, well, well – look what the cat’s brought in,’ Mrs Phipps said when Emma eventually made it down to the kitchen. ‘Taken you six weeks to walk this far it has.’

  ‘As long as that?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say as much?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Phipps,’ Emma said. ‘What day is it? Sunday?’

  ‘Monday.’

  Emma struggled to remember which month it might be. And the date. She pressed her lips together as she concentrated. Her mama’s and Johnnie’s funerals had been on a Friday and …

  Mrs Phipps cut into her thoughts. ‘12th April to save you addling your brain.’

  ‘I’ve survived this long, thinking about the date’s hardly going to kill me now.’

  Despite her spirited response, Emma’s voice sounded weak to her own ears. She thought about checking it was still 1909 but didn’t think she’d be able to stomach the look of derision Mrs Phipps would undoubtedly give her.

  But she was on the receiving end of that look anyway. ‘King’s been to Germany and back while you were idling away upstairs.’

  ‘I wasn’t idling. I was convalescing.’

  And still am.

  It had been struggle enough for Emma coming down the stairs, her knees stiff after weeks of lying in bed, her legs so thin she was afraid they wouldn’t carry her to the bottom step. She’d almost dropped her carpet bag. Mrs Shaw – the doctor’s wife – had fetched it for her from her home, Shingle Cottage, after Emma had asked her to because it contained her ‘treasures’ and she wanted them close by her. Thank goodness Mrs Shaw had thought to look for a change of underthings in Emma’s room and had put those in, too. But that had been all. No one had expected that Emma would be ill for so long, least of all Emma herself.

  The bag was hardly heavy but Emma had been grateful to leave it in the hallway at last while she went in search of a hot drink and something to fill the cavern in her belly, her nose following the smell of frying bacon. How long had it been since she’d eaten anything decent? she wondered. All Mrs Phipps had served up was thin soup with bits of gristle floating in it.

  ‘Pleurisy you’ve had,’ Mrs Phipps said. ‘And a fever. It comes on with shock sometimes, the doctor said. And you made a right spectacle of yourself at the funeral. I expect you want to know what happened, and how …’

  ‘Not particularly,’ Emma said.

  Bits of things kept coming back to her – unwelcome, the way heart-burn is. She remembered St Mary’s had been packed for the joint funeral. Emma shook her head to banish the unwelcome memory.

  But Mrs Phipps was intent on dragging it all up again it seemed. ‘Fainted clean away you did, maid. And hot afterwards. I’ve never touched anything so ’ot that didn’t have a kettle or pot boiling away on the top of it. I put my hand to your forehead and I swear I yelped with the shock of it.’ Mrs Phipps banged a saucepan of water down on the range. ‘Thank goodness Dr Shaw was there. Of course, when he asked the congregation who could take you in I was the first to offer, because didn’t your dear, dead mother and I always say we’d look out for one another’s little ’uns if times got hard?’

  Mrs Phipps placed her hands on her hips, turned towards Emma. But Emma was prepared to let the woman prattle on knowing all of what she said was more than likely lies and that to challenge those lies would be pointless.

  ‘Well, maid, didn’t we?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Phipps. My mama never told me what she spoke to the neighbours about.’

  ‘Well, there’s gratitude.’

&n
bsp; ‘I am grateful to you, Mrs Phipps. For looking after me. Keeping me warm. I don’t suppose there’s a bite of breakfast left I could have?’ Emma’s stomach grumbled and groaned with hunger. She grasped the back of a kitchen chair for support. But Mrs Phipps was glaring at her. ‘Please,’ Emma said, remembering her manners.

  ‘I could spare you a scraping of dripping on some bread.’

  Emma swallowed hard. She thought she might retch at the thought of cold dripping, possibly filthy with the remains of goodness knows what from Mrs Phipps’ cooking pot. ‘I was hoping for a piece of bacon,’ Emma said.

  ‘Oh, were you?’ Mrs Phipps sneered. ‘And where be I getting bacon from, may I ask?’

  ‘From Dr Shaw. I heard him say he’d be providing provisions for me and …’

  Emma left her sentence unfinished, giving Mrs Phipps time to assimilate the fact Emma had heard what Dr Shaw had said. The doctor was kindness itself – going far and beyond the calling of his duty to his patients. Emma’s mama had been on the receiving end of that kindness many a time. And in return, she’d done sewing jobs for his wife without charging.

  ‘Well you heard wrong.’

  ‘I didn’t, Mrs Phipps,’ Emma said, gripping tighter onto the chair back. ‘And my laundry. Where is it? I can’t find any of the clothes I was wearing in the church when I …’

  When I couldn’t bear to see my mother’s coffin with my six-year-old brother, Johnnie’s, small one sitting on top and I knew for sure then I wouldn’t see either of them again, and something overwhelmed me, bigger than the raging sea that took them both. Something dark and sinister that took my breath from me and stilled my heart.

  But Emma couldn’t say the words for fear she would be overwhelmed once more and she’d have to stay with Mrs Phipps forever.

  ‘Well, my lady, you’d best forget anything you thought you heard the doctor say, you hear me? Especially if you’re wanting a bit of breakfast.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Phipps,’ Emma mumbled. ‘But I can smell bacon’s been cooked in here and not so long ago, so I’d like a piece. Please.’

  She had a good idea where her Sunday dress had gone – the dress she’d worn to the funeral. To Mrs Phipps’ daughter, Margaret, no doubt. Although a year or so younger than Emma, the girl was about the same size.

  Emma smoothed out the creased fabric of a navy blue serge skirt that had been mended in at least three places which Mrs Phipps had placed on the bed ready for her to put on. It bagged at the waist and Emma had had to turn the waist band over twice to stop it sliding down over the tops of her shoes; shoes that had been her mother’s which she’d worn to the funeral. And the cream Viyella blouse was no better; one cuff was frayed beyond mending and there was a button missing.

  ‘I’ve never heard such audacity in one so young. That’s what comes of your father having been a furriner, no doubt.’

  ‘My father was a Breton, Mrs Phipps. The Breton language is similar to Welsh and Cornish. My papa …’

  ‘Oi! Don’t you come your clever ways with me, my girl. All that educating is wasted on you now. Why you didn’t leave the learning at fourteen like everyone else, I don’t …’

  ‘Education is never wasted, my mama said. I stayed at school to help the little ones. Mama wanted me to be a teacher.’

  Emma folded her arms across her waist. She could kiss goodbye to some breakfast now for her cheek, couldn’t she?

  ‘Did she now? From what I’ve heard, they won’t be wanting you back at the school to help the little ’uns no more.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Emma had been overjoyed when the headmistress had asked if she’d like to stay on at school after she’d turned fourteen, to see if teaching would be the career for her.

  ‘P’raps, then, you’ll believe this.’

  Mrs Phipps handed Emma a letter. She opened it slowly and began to read. The school could no longer continue with her training to become a teaching assistant. The Board had had a meeting and concluded that Emma wasn’t the sort of person suitable for the education of young minds. Emma shrugged. The letter hadn’t said in as many words, but her guess was that the Board’s decision had something to do with her mama’s death. She hadn’t been entirely sure that teaching was the career for her anyway – and now the decision seemed to have been made for her. Things were getting worse and worse, but what could she do but struggle on? She would have to find work of some sort – enough to pay rent and for food. But what?

  ‘Ain’t pretty, is it?’ Mrs Phipps said, a sly smile on her face, as though she was glad it was bad news for Emma.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, seeing as you’m up and dressed you’d best be on your way. Is that your bag I see out there in the hall?’

  Mrs Phipps jabbed a stubby finger towards the hallway and Emma’s carpet bag. Emma shuddered. Mrs Phipps’ fingers had nails that were none too clean. Emma wasn’t sure now she wanted to eat another thing that Mrs Phipps might serve up.

  But she was hungry – so hungry. She didn’t think she’d be able to make it to the front door never mind back to Shingle Cottage.

  ‘The bacon, Mrs Phipps,’ Emma said boldly. ‘The bacon Dr Shaw said he’d instruct Foale’s the butcher to deliver here for me. I’d like some, please. Just one rasher.’

  ‘’S all gone,’ Mrs Phipps said.

  Which was as near to a confession that Mrs Phipps had appropriated food sent for Emma as she was ever going to get out of her – the two-faced, lying, harridan. She’d only offered to look after Emma for what she’d known she would get out of it, hadn’t she?

  ‘I thought it might have,’ Emma said.

  ‘So it’s bread and dripping or nothing.’

  ‘Then I’ll take the nothing,’ Emma said.

  Dripping had always made Emma gag eating it, and the thought of what state Mrs Phipps’ dripping might be in was making the bile rise in her throat.

  She let go of the back of the chair and willed herself not to feel faint. Then she retrieved her carpet bag from the hall, not that there was much in it save a brooch fashioned like a bunch of anemones that had been her mother’s and a toy wooden horse that had been still clutched in Johnnie’s hand when he’d been found. Emma had asked for her mother’s rings – her square engagement ring with four, small diamonds set within it, and her thin wedding band – but had been told that they were missing when the body was pulled from the water. Emma had asked Dr Shaw about the rings and he said he’d check with the coroner who had said the same thing.

  To Emma’s surprise Mrs Phipps rushed out after her. She laid a hand on Emma’s shoulder. ‘Maybe I’ve been a bit hasty. I could send my Philip down to Foale’s to ask for a bit more bacon. Charge it to the good doctor. And mebbe a bit of nice beef skirt to make a pasty for your supper.’

  Emma imagined Mrs Phipps’ filthy fingers and nails rubbing lard into flour to make pastry and shuddered. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ve troubled you too long. If you could just tell me where you’ve put my coat.’

  ‘Coat? I don’t remember no coat.’

  ‘It’s red,’ Emma said. She remembered her mother making it, telling her the material had once been an officer’s uniform from when England had fought Napoleon. ‘Don’t tell your papa though, will you?’ she’d laughed, hugging Emma to her at the joke. Fighting back tears because she missed her mother so, Emma went on, ‘It’s got black curlicue stitching on the collar.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember now,’ Mrs Phipps said. ‘In the church. The last I saw it was draped over the pew end. Next to Beattie Drew.’

  ‘Mrs Drew would never take my coat,’ Emma said.

  ‘Did I say she had?’ Mrs Phipps snapped, her eyes narrow slits, hard and flinty. ‘Best you don’t go around accusing folks of anything. D’you get my meaning?’

  ‘I do,’ Emma said, with a
sigh. She pulled her shawl – at least Mrs Phipps hadn’t appropriated that for her daughter – around her shoulders and tied it more tightly. It would have to do until she got home – there was bound to be a jacket hanging on a peg somewhere. Something smarter to wear than a shawl at least.

  She lifted the latch on Mrs Phipps’ front door. A blast of good sea air almost blew Emma off her feet – but how good it felt after so long in the mustiness of Mrs Phipps’ front bedroom. If she took things slowly, breathing in deeply until she got back to Shingle Cottage it couldn’t help but give her strength, could it?

  It was only a short distance from Mrs Phipps’ home in Cliff Terrace back to Shingle Cottage but it felt like miles to Emma. Her bereavement and her illness had taken a toll on her and she’d had to stop to catch her breath more than a few times. But now she was catching it for a different reason – Seth Jago. If the first person she had to see after leaving Mrs Phipps’ was Seth then she was glad it was him. He had his back to her, standing on a ladder, and the bright sunshine was making his crow-black, thick hair – straight as candles – glisten like wet coal. Rumour had it that Seth’s pa was of Spanish descent. Certainly, Emma thought, gazing at him, Seth’s skin was a lot darker than hers was, swarthy even.

  Many were the times before Emma had been orphaned, when they had come across one another in the town, and would fall in to step together if they were going in the same direction. They never ran out of things to talk about. And once Seth had carried her basket of groceries from May’s the grocer all the way back up the hill to Shingle Cottage for her. Emma had often had the feeling that he’d been hoping he would see her and that perhaps he might ask her to walk out with him. But circumstances had put a stop to that speculation.

  The last time she’d seen Seth her brother’s body had been cradled in his arms – half of her adored Johnnie’s fair hair had been ripped off and his face was lacerated where he’d been thrown against rocks. Seth’s face had been wet but Emma couldn’t be sure if it was tears or the rain that had been pouring relentlessly down.

  Two days later her mother’s body had been washed up further down the coast.