To Turn Full Circle

by Linda Mitchelmore

  She handed Emma a cup of coffee. ‘Now get that down you and all this breakfast here. I don’t want a scrap left. Either of you. And seeing as she was up all night playing Florence Nightingale, I’ve turned the mattress in what was the housemaid’s room and put fresh linens on it. Poor maid’s worn out. She could sleep there, if that’s all right with you, Seth?’

  ‘Perfectly,’ Seth said.

  ‘Oh, I can’t stay,’ Emma said, flustered. She’d acted impulsively the night before and she was glad she had, pleased beyond anything that Seth hadn’t come to any worse grief than a few cuts and bruises. But now she couldn’t stay – she just couldn’t. To be in the same house with Seth and not want to creep into his bed, feel his arms around her – well, it would all be too much. More than she wanted to cope with at the moment. ‘It wouldn’t be right. People will talk. Again.’

  Seth looked as though she’d hit him with a barbed stick.

  ‘Where’ll you go then, lovie?’ Mrs Drew said.

  ‘A hotel. A boarding house somewhere. I need time to think. On my own.’

  ‘Before you get down to having those hypo-whatever-you-called-them babies?’ Mrs Drew said.

  Emma pressed her lips together. Nodded. ‘I’ve still got some things up at Nase Head House. Clothes. I’ll need to see about getting them back. If Mr Smythe hasn’t given an order for me not to be allowed on the premises.’

  ‘Oh, I ’spect he has,’ Mrs Drew said. ‘Men like that don’t like being slighted. Could you get in touch with Ruby? Ask her to squirrel them out of your old room?’

  ‘I expect I could,’ Emma said. ‘But I wouldn’t want her to get into trouble on my account. Anyway, I don’t know where to tell her to bring them.’

  ‘Shingle Cottage is still empty,’ Seth said. ‘It’s furnished. Aired. You can stop there. I’ll get the key.’

  He got up and strode over to a dresser, opened a drawer. Came back with the key to Shingle Cottage on the plaited threads that Emma had made for her papa.

  ‘For as long as you like, Emma,’ Seth said, holding the key out to her. ‘I understand your need for time. Trust me, I understand that.’ He turned to Mrs Drew. ‘I’ll take my breakfast in my room.’

  And then he left.

  Emma stared at the key in her hand for a long time. She’d turned full circle, hadn’t she? If she went back to live in Shingle Cottage she’d be where she’d been two years ago and it would be as if all her struggle to survive, to better herself, to learn and to grow had been for nothing.

  ‘I’ve upset him,’ Emma said.

  ‘Right an’ all you have, lovie. That expression in his eyes when he looks at you is pure love. He drinks you in, lovie. And there’s you refusing his offer to stay in this lovely big, warm house. You’re so stubborn, Emma Le Goff, you can’t see what’s in front of your own nose sometimes.’

  ‘I speak before I think. I …’

  ‘Don’t you just. You’ll learn, though. But don’t you worry. You’ll be snug as a bug back in Shingle Cottage seeing as Seth got me to light the range once a week to keep the place aired in case you needed it. And a heated brick went in the bed once a week an’ all. Oh, I know he was fearful you’d get snared by that Smythe fellow, but between you and me, I don’t think he ever gave up hope that you wouldn’t. Why else would he have told me to do all that? Now I’d best be getting Seth’s share of this up to his room or you won’t be the only one looking for a job.’

  Mrs Drew placed half the breakfast she’d brought in on the table in front of Emma and left the room with the other half on the tray.

  Emma ate every single scrap. She had lots to think about and she’d need good food inside her to give her the strength to do it.

  Emma woke to daylight. She had no idea how long she’d slept. She remembered waking when it was dark; waking with her mouth dry and needing water, but she hadn’t thought to bring any up with her. She’d gone back to sleep eventually. But now it was light outside again. So she must have slept through a whole day.

  She eased herself from the bed. Stretched. Looked around her. She was in the room that had been her mama’s and papa’s and then later Matthew’s.

  The jug on the dressing table was empty and she badly wanted a wash. She’d have to go and draw water from the pump at the bottom of the back lane. And to think she’d had running water in taps at Nase Head House. And there’d been water from taps in Seth’s house, too.

  She felt grubby now, in need of a change of clothes. She only had the dance dress she’d run away from Nase Head House in. And she was going to look ridiculous walking about town in that at this hour of the day, wasn’t she?

  Barefoot, a blanket around her for modesty’s sake in case anyone should look through the window, she went down the stairs.

  To her surprise there was already water drawn in a bucket by the back door. And a loaf of bread on the dresser. A square of butter on a dish. A packet of tea. A jug of milk on the marble slab. And towels – three of them, neatly folded and piled one on top of the other. She picked up the top one and it smelled of lavender. Same as the towels in Seth’s house did. Mrs Drew must have had a hand in this.

  She smiled. Mrs Drew was such a good woman. How easy it would have been for her to be bitter seeing as she’d had such a drunk for a husband and life had been more than a struggle with six children to bring up with little money.

  ‘Oh, and a skirt and blouse,’ Emma said, as she spied both draped over the back of a chair. They looked new, and the fabric felt as though it had never been washed, when she fingered the stiff collar of the blouse.

  She wondered whose they’d been, not that it mattered. Certainly they couldn’t have been Mrs Drew’s because she was a lot shorter and a lot rounder than Emma was. But Emma now had something to wear when she went out to look for somewhere she could start her fledgling business. She was determined to do that. She couldn’t expect other people to come to her aid all the time, as grateful as she was for Mrs Drew’s and Seth’s help at that very moment.

  Washed and dressed, two slices of bread and butter and a cup of tea inside her, Emma was ready to start her new life.

  She’d told Seth she wanted to find premises to start a business, so she’d jolly well go out there and look for somewhere.

  It wasn’t easy for Seth not to go to Shingle Cottage. At least a dozen times a day he found himself walking that way. With superhuman effort he somehow managed to turn and go in another direction. He’d promised Emma time to think and he’d honour that promise – however long it took.

  Now he was on his way to Nase Head House, determined to go in through the gate and up the drive to the front door, regardless of what reception he would get from Rupert Smythe when he got there. He’d had glimpses of Emma going about the town over the past two days and each time she’d been wearing the same skirt and blouse he’d asked Mrs Drew to take to Shingle Cottage. And her trusty shawl; Emma wore it for emotional protection rather than warmth, he was sure of it, because August was the hottest he could remember. Mrs Drew had told him that Emma hadn’t got her things back from Nase Head House yet – well, he’d do his level best to get them back for her.

  ‘Ah, Will,’ Seth said, as he reached the entrance to the hotel. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Just the chap I want to see.’

  ‘Oh, Lordy, Seth. I’ve not been in this job long, helping Mr Evans out – he’s getting on a bit. I’ll get the sack quick as lightning if I let you in. Got orders to keep you out, haven’t I?’

  ‘Who says I’m coming in?’

  ‘Eh? You’ve got me puzzled now.’

  Seth grinned. Poor Will – he never had been the brightest star in the galaxy.

  ‘Remember when we were at school, Will, and you fought the Ede gang with me when they pounced on me after school?’

  ‘Right an’ all I do. And you bought me sweets by way of th
anks. Aniseed balls and gobstoppers. Kept buying ’em you did, long after the fight was over.’

  ‘Glad you remember. But I need another favour now. I need to go to Emma Le Goff’s room and clear all her possessions into this bag.’ Seth unrolled the kitbag he’d had tucked under his arm.

  ‘I can’t let you do that, Seth. My job is to stay here and keep an eye out that Emma Le Goff doesn’t come back for her things and that you don’t come in, neither. And cut the grass and dead-head the flowers while I’m doing it.’

  ‘D’you know which room was hers, Will?’

  ‘Oh, I do. The tower room.’ Will put two fingers to his lips. ‘But I’ve just remembered – I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.’

  Seth smiled. ‘I won’t tell anyone you have.’ Seth put a hand inside his jacket where he kept his wallet. He fingered out a £5 note and held it out towards Will. ‘For your help.’

  ‘Five pounds?’

  ‘Ssh, keep your voice down.’ Seth chuckled. ‘I’ll make it two five pound notes then.’

  Seth took a second note from his wallet. He hoped and prayed Will wouldn’t get the sack for aiding and abetting him.

  ‘You always were a foundling in that house of yours,’ Will said, reaching for the money. He jerked a thumb towards Hilltop House. Then he turned his back on Seth and began pruning a plant Seth knew didn’t need pruning. ‘In the back door’ll be the quickest. Turn to the left. First flight of stairs you come to, keep going up ’til you can’t go no further. On your way.’

  Seth raced across the lawn and around the back of Nase Head House.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘You can’t come in here, Emma,’ William Coote said.

  ‘I’ve got things in my old room,’ Emma said.

  She should have come for them before but she’d been plucking up the courage to do so. And if truth be told, that courage was rapidly leaking away.

  ‘Might have,’ William said. ‘Might not. Lots of stuff been thrown out the back, ready for a bonfire.’

  ‘Not my things, I hope,’ Emma said. She made to push past – she just couldn’t bear the thought that all her clothes and personal possessions would be burned again, as Reuben Jago had had her things burned after her parents’ and Johnnie’s deaths. But William Coote grabbed her arm and pushed her back towards the gates.

  ‘I said you can’t come in. I’m in enough trouble already for letting someone in I shouldn’t have. Mr Evans found out and I had to give ’im one of the £5 notes I was given to look the other way.’

  ‘Who gave you money, William?’

  William Coote gave Emma a shove – not too hard, but not a gentle push either. ‘I’m not saying.’

  ‘Was it someone wanting to go to my room?’

  ‘I’m not telling you that either. Now go.’

  Emma didn’t put up a fight. She didn’t want to spend her savings on new clothes but if she had to, then so be it. ‘They’re only clothes and few bits,’ she said. ‘If Mr Smythe wants to sink so low as to burn them, then let him.’

  And she marched off down the hill.

  Seth was standing on the path by the front door when she returned to Shingle Cottage. And he was smiling. Eyes closed, face turned to the sun, but smiling. There was a canvas kitbag and a carpet bag propped up against the door jamb. Her carpet bag. The one she’d left behind at Nase Head House. How good it was to see it. To see him. Oh, how she’d missed him. She hoped that smile meant he’d missed her, too.

  Seth had said he’d give her time and she’d always be grateful for that. She’d had enough time now – she was in love with Seth Jago and wanted him to know it. Even more so now that it looked as though he’d risked the wrath of Mr Smythe by going to collect her things.

  Emma flung open the gate and it banged noisily against the wall, making Seth jump at the sound, eyes springing open in surprise. A huge grin spread across his face. He was as pleased to see her as she was to see him, Emma knew it. Especially when he opened his arms wide inviting her into them.

  She thought she’d trip over her own feet she ran that fast towards him. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Emma said, ‘I’ll come to Canada with you. Anywhere.’

  ‘Canada?’ Seth said, looking mock-puzzled. ‘What makes you think I’m going to Canada?’

  ‘You have talked about it, you know you have …’

  ‘And I also said I’d spread the rumour to make you realise how much you’d miss me if I went.’ Seth grinned at her – how a smile transformed his face. ‘The truth of it is, I couldn’t go anywhere without you, Emma. We’ll go to Canada one day, perhaps. But not today.’

  ‘Oh, Seth,’ Emma said. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say. And you’ve got my things. From Nase Head House. It was you. I’ve just come from there. William Coote said he’d got into trouble for letting someone in he shouldn’t have.’

  She threw herself at Seth, not caring who saw her, and clasped her hands behind the back of his neck. Kissed his cheek. Then kissed it again.

  ‘I took a kitbag but it wasn’t big enough for everything. I saw your carpet bag and filled that. I thought you’d want that, too.’

  ‘Oh, I do. Thank you, thank you, thank you,’ Emma said.

  Then she kissed the other cheek.

  ‘Well, that makes parting with £10 for Will to look the other way worthwhile.’ Seth had put his arms around the back of Emma’s waist now and was hugging her tightly.

  ‘Good old William,’ Emma said.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. We went to school together, him and me. So, he pretended a rose, or somesuch, needed pruning urgently and I slipped past him. I saw Smythe with Gillet’s daughter when I was coming down the stairs, but he was deep in conversation and didn’t …’

  ‘Joanna Gillet?’

  Mr Smythe hadn’t wasted any time finding someone else to take her place, Emma thought. She’d been gone from the place less than a week.

  ‘Gillet’s only got one daughter. But are we going to stand here all day talking about people who don’t really matter a jot to us, or …’

  ‘I don’t want to let you go,’ Emma said.

  ‘Or me, you,’ Seth said. ‘But this isn’t the best place to conduct a courtship, especially as I can see Mrs Phipps coming down the road.’

  Emma giggled. ‘Let’s give her something to spread gossip about, shall we?’ she said. She took her hands from behind Seth’s neck, and placed them on his cheeks. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth. Just a gentle kiss at first, but then it went deeper and it seemed to Emma as though their souls had melded together.

  The kiss went on and on and on and Emma didn’t want it ever to stop. That kiss was telling them everything they needed to know about what was in the other’s heart. And she knew that wherever it was they were going to go from here in life then it would be together.

  ‘Filthy devils,’ Mrs Phipps shouted as she reached the gate of Shingle Cottage. ‘Out here so anyone can see.’

  ‘And you’ve never done it yourself, Mrs Phipps?’ Emma said, reluctantly releasing her lips from Seth’s.

  ‘Not in broad daylight. But then you’re no better than you should be, Emma Le Goff. Like mother …’

  ‘I’d keep very quiet if I were you, Mrs Phipps,’ Seth interrupted.

  ‘And who’s making me? Not a criminal Jago?’

  ‘No,’ Seth said. ‘I’m not a criminal. But there is such a thing as slander and I’ll have no qualms about accusing you of it if I hear you call me that ever again. D’you hear me?’

  That made Mrs Phipps change her tune. Her scowl became a nervous smile. She twisted her hands together over and over. She flicked a greasy-looking, loose strand of hair back over the top of her head.

  Seth turned his back on Mrs Phipps.

  ‘Time I tasted one of your famous crab tarts,
I think, Emma.’ Seth bent to tap the top of his kitbag.

  ‘You’ve never put a crab on top of my things?’

  ‘Might have. Well wrapped in a bit of sacking if I have. But you’ll have to take it indoors and look for yourself.’ Seth kissed the top of Emma’s head, reached for her hand. ‘Come on, Emma.’

  Emma took her key from the pocket of her skirt. ‘You could have waited for me inside, Seth. Didn’t you have a key to let yourself in?’ she asked.

  ‘I did. But I didn’t want to use it. I wanted you to want me to come in.’

  ‘Oh, I do, Seth, I do.’

  Emma made Seth the crab tart he’d asked for, using herbs she’d planted herself in the back garden which had run riot – a veritable forest – in the time she’d been away, to flavour the egg and milk filling.

  For dessert Emma poached apples, picked from the tree in the back garden, in a toffee sauce and made Seth run to the dairy for clotted cream to serve with them.

  Between eating they didn’t talk much. They kissed instead. And just gazed at one another. And they repeated the cooking and the kissing and the gazing day after day for a whole week when Seth finished his day’s work. Getting to know one another all over again, falling in love with one another a little more with each mouthful they fed one another; with each kiss.

  They both knew they did have to talk. About their future. But talking in Shingle Cottage didn’t seem to be the right place to be doing it, even though it held so many good memories for Emma.

  When Seth suggested a walk before sunset, Emma knew where it was he would take her.

  Crystal Cove. Emma was pleased to have her coat back and let Seth help her on with it. Seth suggested they take a blanket as, while it had been a warm day, once the sun set it would be considerably colder. What would they do on that blanket, Emma wondered as – arms linked – they made their way to Crystal Cove.

  ‘This always was our special place, sweetheart, wasn’t it?’

  Sweetheart – his special name for her.

  ‘It was. Is,’ Emma said. ‘I can’t imagine not being able to come here.’