To Turn Full Circle

by Linda Mitchelmore

  ‘You always seem to be looking out for me,’ Emma said. ‘That day when I came home to Shingle Cottage after I’d been ill and stopping with Mrs Phipps, only it wasn’t my home any more. You followed me and kept me safe from Margaret Phipps and her gang, and took me to Mrs Drew’s …’

  ‘It’s gone, Emma. All those horrid times have gone. You have to look forward. We both have. However hard it’s going to be. Will you move away from here, do you think?’

  Would she? Now Seth had planted the seed in her mind, why end her ambition by working at Nase Head House, when there was London and Bristol and even Paris to explore?

  ‘Will you? Move away from here, I mean.’

  ‘I might. I’ve got an uncle in Canada, fishing out of Vancouver.’

  ‘Canada? But that’s an ocean away. The Atlantic’s so big and you get seasick!’

  ‘There’s that,’ Seth laughed. ‘Anyone would think you didn’t want me to go …’

  ‘I don’t know that I do,’ Emma said quickly.

  She knew in her heart Matthew Caunter wouldn’t be around forever to take care of her, and Seth was the only other person in the whole town – apart from Mrs Drew and Dr Shaw – who spoke a kindly word to her.

  ‘You can relax,’ Seth said, but a shadow seemed to pass across his mind. ‘I won’t be going just yet.’

  ‘Your ma? And if she fell or …’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got unfinished business here. I won’t be going anywhere until I find out what really happened to her.’

  ‘I can’t leave Mama and Papa yet, either. Or Johnnie. And … and,’ Emma leaned over and kissed Seth on the cheek, ‘I’d miss you if I went away.’

  There – she couldn’t make it plainer that she liked him, and liked him very much, could she?

  Chapter Nine

  Five days had passed and still Matthew Caunter hadn’t returned. Emma had been down to the quay, counted Reuben Jago’s bigger boats – the trawlers, the ones that went as far as France – and there was one still out. She rather hoped that the boat had put into a French port and that Matthew had got the coffee he’d promised her and that it hadn’t got a soaking from a rough sea.

  She wondered now, as she washed her clothes at the sink, if she should try and see Seth and ask if he knew when the boat would be back. Since the afternoon on the beach she’d only seen him once when he’d been in a hurry to go to the bank for his father before it closed. He’d promised to call at Shingle Cottage but so far hadn’t – unless he’d come when she was out.

  Emma reached under the sink for extra soapflakes, her hand brushing against the bag with the tart tins Matthew had insisted she buy. Why had he been so insistent that she did? Who was going to want six crab tarts all at once? She hoped, when she eventually got to cook them, the oven in the range wouldn’t play up and burn the pastry or leave the filling unset.

  Matthew had to be back soon. The longest her papa had ever been at sea had been four days. The boat didn’t have room to carry provisions for longer than that, and already Matthew had been away for a day longer. Ought she to buy in the eggs and the butter and the cheese for the tarts? No, the weather was getting warmer by the day – she left the windows open most of the day now to air the place out. Best get the things that would go off once Matthew was back with the crabs.

  Emma rinsed her washing in cold water. She was about to throw out the water it had been washed in, still warm and frothy with soapflakes, when she changed her mind.

  Matthew hadn’t given her any clothes to wash before he left. He liked a clean shirt to wear on the evenings he did go out. There were always shirts of his to wash and dry. And iron. Goodness, what hard work that was – heating the flat iron just enough so it didn’t scorch the cloth, but after a few sweeps of it across a shirt it cooled down and she had to start the whole heating-up process over again on the range.

  If she went into his room and ignored everything but whatever dirty linen Matthew had left lying around she wouldn’t be reneging on her promise never to enter it – not really. She’d be selective in where she looked and what she touched. And he wouldn’t mind if she broke her promise when he got a bundle of clean laundry in exchange, would he?

  Emma ran up the stairs before the soapy water lost its heat altogether. But the second she opened the door she forgot her promise to herself not to look at things she perhaps ought not to.

  Matthew’s bed was strewn with maps and sea charts. She knew what they were because her papa had owned sea charts. He’d told Emma he needed to be able to read them in case the skipper took ill and he had to take charge – for his own safety as much as anything. A notebook lay open on Matthew’s pillow. And there were books piled up on a little table beside the bed. And pens. So many pens and bottles of ink. Pencils, too.

  Slowly, Emma crept towards the notebook. The writing in it was large and well-formed, artistic-looking even, with curls and long tails to the ‘p’s and the ‘g’s and the ‘y’s.

  But Matthew had said he couldn’t write. She’d heard him tell the sergeant when he’d come to question Matthew about Sophie Ellison. So why had he lied?

  Emma picked up the book from the top of the pile. The Principles of Marine Law. She opened it. Matthew’s name was written in black ink on the inside – the same writing as in the notebook.

  ‘He’s lied to me,’ Emma said, just so she could hear the words, know they were true.

  What was going on? What was he doing here really?

  Grabbing a blue-and-white striped shirt that was half on and half off Matthew’s bed, Emma ran from the room. Back in the kitchen she threw the shirt in the bowl of suds and scrubbed with all her might, trying to scrub away her anger that Matthew had lied to her.

  ‘I’ve bought the tart tins,’ Emma snapped later that day when Matthew eventually returned home.

  ‘And hello to you, too.’ Matthew laughed. He threw his canvas bag down on the floor inside the front door. ‘I can see you are just thrilled to see me. A rabid dog would probably have had a better welcome.’

  ‘Hello,’ Emma said, staring down at her toes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ Emma said. She dug her hands into the pocket of her apron.

  ‘Women’s troubles?’

  Emma looked up then. Girls just didn’t talk to men about things like that.

  ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ she lied.

  ‘And no doubt that’s because you’ve been dreaming up all sorts of scenarios about why I asked you to get tart tins?’

  ‘I did wonder, yes. But I haven’t been addling my brain dreaming up scenarios, as you put it,’ Emma said. ‘But why did you ask me to get them?’

  ‘Nase Head House? Know it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Of course she knew it. She was saving hard to be able to buy nice things of her own, so she didn’t have to rely on people’s kindness and wear hand-me-downs. Then she’d be smart as Mr Smythe had said girls had to be to work for him and she could get a job there. Live there.

  ‘Good. Well, I happen to know that business is picking up well. And seeing as the rail company has added more passenger carriages to its rolling stock there’ll be people coming down from London. People used to fancy food. Mr Smythe …’

  ‘How do you know Mr Smythe?’ Emma interrupted.

  Was Mr Smythe into smuggling, too?

  Matthew didn’t answer for what seemed ages. He just looked at Emma, as though staring right inside her head. As though he could read all her thoughts. And those thoughts were rushing around in her head the way a swallow does when it flies into a room through a window and can’t find the way back out again.

  ‘You’re a very clever young lady, Emma, if I’m not mistaken. But wisdom you are going to have to learn. The wisdom to accept things as they’re presented to you and not ask qu
estions is a trait you’d do well to try and master. It’s my belief that if a body has the money to go somewhere and buy things then they have every right to be in that place or have those things. I’ve eaten at Nase Head House and – in my opinion – what was being presented is nowhere near as good as your cooking. I told Mr Smythe …’

  ‘You never did?’

  ‘Tiresome, tiresome girl,’ Matthew said, with a theatrical sigh. ‘Wisdom, Emma. Have the wisdom to listen to the end of an explanation.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Emma said. She was itching to know what was coming next, really. And she also wanted to ask if Matthew had taken his lady friend there to eat. If he had then she had to be someone special to him. But now wasn’t the time to ask, was it?

  ‘Mr Smythe has agreed to pay you …’

  ‘He hasn’t tasted my cooking yet.’

  Matthew laughed. ‘Not doubting your abilities, are you?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘I sang your praises high enough. I’m surprised your ears weren’t burning.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ Emma said. ‘How much is he going to pay me?’

  ‘We didn’t discuss that. But you could ask for, say, a shilling a tart?’

  A shilling a tart? Six shillings for six tarts. Rapidly, Emma began to calculate how much the ingredients would cost. Assuming Matthew would give her the crabs she’d have to buy flour and butter and eggs and cream. And cheese. If eggs cost a shilling a dozen, and cream was …

  ‘Ha ha!’ Matthew said. ‘I can almost see the numbers going around in your head.’

  Emma grinned at him. She still had two of the sovereigns Matthew had put in the bag with her mother’s things. She could use them to start up a little business providing tarts for Nase Head House. And with the money earned from that she’d be a lot nearer being able to buy a good dress and good shoes and a well-cut coat so she could work at Nase Head House all the time.

  ‘I’ll get the crabs in, shall I?’

  ‘Please,’ Emma said.

  The words spilling out of her, Emma followed Matthew to the front door as she told him about her dream to work at Nase Head House and dance in the room with chandeliers.

  ‘Out the back with these, I think,’ Matthew said, as he hefted a Hessian sack wriggling with live crabs. ‘I see there’s an old boiler in your pa’s outhouse. You can boil them in that.’

  ‘And in the morning I’ll go to the market and get all the other things while they’re boiling,’ Emma said.

  ‘Good girl. I had a hunch you learned fast. I …’

  But the second Matthew threw wide the back door and dropped the bag of crabs onto the path, Emma’s heart sank. The shirt she’d taken from his room was flapping in the breeze. Matthew had seen it, she knew he had. He’d known in a heartbeat that she’d been in his room. He’d stopped walking, stopped talking.

  He ran back to the house, slammed shut the door again and spun round to face her. ‘But you don’t learn fast enough. That shirt, Emma Le Goff, was on the bed in my room. And …’

  ‘I don’t want to be party to smuggling, even if I am an innocent party.’

  ‘Who said anything about smuggling?’

  ‘You … you said you couldn’t read or write, but you can and you’ve got sea charts. Smugglers need to know where they can safely drop contraband. And Mr Jago …’

  ‘I can’t speak for Mr Jago, Emma. And I think you know that. But answer me one question – if you don’t stop here, where will you find a roof over your head?’

  ‘Tonight?’ Emma’s heart skipped a beat. Was he going to throw her out right now?

  Matthew raised his eyebrows and shrugged. The man was complex. Emma had never met anyone like him. He seemed ruthless and kind in equal measure.

  ‘I’ll forget about anything I saw in your room, if you’ll forget I went in there. I need to be able to make those crab tarts, Matthew, because I know I can’t stay here forever.’

  Matthew sighed loudly. ‘Women! They’ll be the death of me. Now run and get some water on to boil before I’m up before the beak for murder.’

  Emma ran.

  ‘And this is Emma Le Goff.’ Matthew placed a hand under Emma’s elbow and guided her forward.

  ‘We’ve met before,’ Rupert Smythe said. And this time, Emma was pleased to see, he extended a hand for her to shake. A little part of her was glad that he had remembered her, too. Perhaps she would be able to work here some day. And, with luck, soon. ‘Pleased to see you again, Miss Le Goff.’

  Emma gazed around the foyer. She hadn’t wanted to come to Nase Head House because she knew her clothes weren’t fine enough for such a place. But Matthew had insisted. Her clothes were clean and honestly come by, he’d argued, and with some polish on her shoes and a smile on her face she’d more than pass muster.

  And now here she was and glad to be. Everything was even lovelier than she’d remembered. The chandeliers seemed to sparkle more brilliantly, and the leather carousel seat seemed more lustrous, the wooden desk more highly polished. And the floor tiles were so clean and bright she could see her reflection in them.

  She wondered if Mr Smythe was waiting for her to speak, to say how glad she was to meet him again.

  She felt Matthew squeeze her elbow before letting go. ‘The crab tarts, Mr Smythe,’ he said. ‘In the box here. Emma has made them and I thought it only right that she see first hand how pleased you will be with them.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Rupert Smythe said. ‘Quite right.’

  He rang the bell on the desk and an elderly man in some sort of black uniform with a high starched collar came in, and Rupert Smythe instructed him to escort Emma and her tarts to the kitchen.

  ‘And stay there, Emma,’ Matthew said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Wisdom?’ she mouthed to him.

  Matthew nodded. Winked. How well they were beginning to understand one another. But just what was going on between Matthew and Mr Smythe?

  Emma was escorted into a vast kitchen that had a long trestle table in the middle of it. A lad scrubbing pans at the sink looked up but didn’t speak. Emma wondered if she ought to talk to him – say good morning at the very least – but decided not to. Instead she looked around. On the walls hung rows of copper-bottomed pots. And ladles of all shapes and sizes. She stared around in wonder at it all and giggled – she’d had a game of it cooking six crab tarts in one small oven, swapping them top to bottom, half-cooked, in and out, so that they were all more or less cooked at the same temperature. But they’d all turned out perfect in the end. Matthew had lifted her from her feet and twirled and twirled her around the kitchen, pleased with her handiwork.

  ‘And who might you be laughing in my kitchen?’

  She turned to see a man of about forty years old. Fat. Balding head. He had a white apron tied, not very neatly, around his middle. And it was smeared with grease.

  ‘Emma Le Goff.’

  Emma held out her hand but the man merely sniffed and turned his back on her. He hauled a sack of potatoes from under a bench and thrust a potato peeler towards Emma.

  ‘If you’re the new skivvy then you can get yourself to peeling these.’

  ‘I’m not the new skivvy. I’ve come with Mr Caunter, who’s gone somewhere with Mr Smythe. I’ve been told to wait here.’

  ‘Smythe’s bit of interest, are you?’

  ‘Interest? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh, don’t come the innocent with me. Comely girl like yourself. It’s common knowledge Mr Smythe will be needing female company. What with his wife still up in London and all. And …’

  ‘Well, I’m not it,’ Emma said. She knew what this odious man was meaning now. ‘I was asked to make some crab tarts and Mr Caunter insisted I come with him when he delivered them.’

  ‘Crab tarts? What are they when the
y’re at home?’

  ‘A pastry case with an egg-and-milk mixture, cooked crab, and grated cheese. My papa taught me how to make them.’

  ‘Le Goff you say? Wouldn’t be fancy French tarts now, would they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well you can take them back where they belong. Is that them over there?’

  He pointed to the cardboard box containing the tarts Emma had placed on a side table. She raced towards it and placed her hands protectively on the lid which Matthew had secured with string and lots of fancy knots.

  ‘Yes. And don’t you dare touch them.’

  ‘And I won’t be eating them, either. My cooking was good enough for the Smythes when they lived in London. Ate out most of the time, they did, him and his wife. But for everyday stuff – roasts and the like – there were no complaints.’

  Emma wondered why Mr Smythe’s wife was in London and who might be cooking for her if this man wasn’t. But then she remembered it was none of her business and Matthew had instructed her to learn wisdom. She’d start practising that right now.

  ‘And I’m sure that still holds,’ Emma said. ‘But Mr Caunter said there’s more and more trains coming down from London with visitors for this hotel, and they’ll be wanting London restaurant sort of food.’

  ‘And a slip of a girl like you is going to provide it?’

  One day, Emma thought, one day. And if she ever got to work in this kitchen she’d make sure it was cleaner than it was now. She could see a dollop of fat on top of the draining board. And the tea-towel hanging from a bar by the range was none too pristine, either. Didn’t Mr Smythe ever come in here to see these things?

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘The tarts are by way of an experiment.’

  Emma picked up the box of tarts and sat on a chair at the centre working table. She’d sit there and hold them tight on her lap for as long as it took before Matthew and Mr Smythe came back. What happened to them after that was no concern of hers, but she wasn’t going to let this man wreck what might be her way of making a living for herself.

  ‘I didn’t expect Mr Smythe to eat half a tart!’ Emma said.