by Vicky Adin
Mary had persuaded her that a new gown was essential for this important day. Emma had eventually agreed, but she would have none of the chiffons and frills that were evident in most wedding gowns. Instead, she had chosen a watered silk in the palest of soft dove grey, a new, longer length corset that shaped down over her hips, giving her a more s-shaped figure, allowing the skirt to fall naturally to her ankles. A small, embroidered fichu at the neck, pinned with a brooch she had borrowed from Mary, her new boots, a small bonnet and she was ready.
Mary had other ideas. She clasped a pair of small pearl earrings to the lobes of Emma’s ears, handed her a small posy of flowers and a fan to carry. “There now, that completes the outfit perfectly,” she said.
On that March 4th morning, when Emma walked into the home of John Proctor accompanied by his daughter-in-law, Daniel was as proud as punch at how beautiful his bride looked. The Reverend Samuel Barnett stood waiting for them. Daniel, who remembered the man’s earlier accusations that drinking men dressed the publican’s wife better than their own, did not like him, but he held his peace for Emma’s sake on this special day.
All too soon the service was over. He and Emma were legally wed.
“A toast to the bride and groom.” John poured sparkling grape juice into wide-rimmed glasses for the ladies and beer for the men. The women gathered round Emma to talk about her gown and admire her new gold band. The men talked about horses and the latest racing results. The children, for the time, ran around the garden watched over by Lizzie.
Later that day, after a light meal of sandwiches and cakes, Daniel and Emma sent the children home. They had important business to do with the registrar. When asked, Daniel stated his age, incorrectly, as forty-eight. Emma’s he gave, correctly, as thirty. The registrar did not hesitate and wrote down what he was told. Daniel would turn fifty-four the following month and, even to his ears, the age gap seemed huge. His vanity got the better of him. He didn’t want to appear an old man.
What was far more important to Daniel and Emma on the day of their wedding was not only did they register their marriage, they also registered the births of their six children. By the end of the month new birth certificates arrived stating the entries had been made under the Legitimation Act of 1894, and all previous records had been permanently sealed.
10 February 1897
“Thank you,” was all Daniel could say. On a beautiful February day thirteen months after Frederick was born and eleven months after their official marriage, Emma presented Daniel with his third daughter, little Emma who would always be called Amy. Despite her protestations Fred would be her last, Emma was besotted with her baby girl. Daniel, too, was happy with his little daughter, even though he worried about how he would feed and clothe seven children, let alone house them. The house was nowhere near big enough.
“Charlie, can you and the boys move the beds around today, please, so Lizzie can make them up?”
“I suppose that means Amy will be sleeping in our room?” he queried.
“Of course, where else do you expect her to sleep? All the babies have slept with us.”
Emma was rather nonplussed by his question. “Frederick is still young enough to sleep in with Lizzie and Clara. Set his cot up in there, will you? Lizzie will see to him if he wakes.”
“A’right.” Daniel left Emma feeding Amy and went to do as he was asked, muttering under his breath. He considered it high time he had a full night’s sleep rather than being woken all the time. He wouldn’t dare say anything to Emma but it wasn’t good for a man of his age.
Young Charlie, Henry and William shared the largest room, which was far too cramped to fit three beds. When the boys were younger and they could top and tail, it had worked. But now, at thirteen, Charlie needed a bed of his own, and Henry was too tall these days for that to be workable any longer.
Daniel loved all his children and was pleased to see them growing into useful young people. Lizzie was a big help with the cooking and housework and looking after the little ones, and the boys helped on the land. He might not have much but there was always plenty to do – a fence to mend or a sheep to kill for eating, the cow to milk or feeding the hens, Clara’s favourite job. On top of that Emma had persuaded him to plant a larger vegetable garden and grow some crops for barter. Good, practical Emma, never misses an opportunity to save a few pennies.
All too soon, the summer months of long evenings and swimming in the river passed, and the autumn evenings closed in. Daniel found he enjoyed staying home more and more. He would sometimes bring a flagon home and have some ale at his own hearth instead of going to the pub.
“Pa, get out your harmonica, please. Play us a tune,” Henry asked that evening.
“Yes, yes,” chimed in the others. “Please, Pa.”
“Let’s play a merry tune to welcome wee Amy to the family,” said Lizzie.
It never ceased to amaze him how contented his family was, being together, always lots of laughter, the occasional flared temper soon forgotten, but each a friend and companion to the others.
* * *
In late April, the winter storms hit with a vengeance. They’d arrived early by anybody’s standards, but there was no telling when they might strike. Autumn was renowned for it. He stood at the window watching the rain, thinking about the warning telegram he’d received late on Friday night. The water level would be breaching the banks further up the river by now. Within a short time, every able-bodied person would be needed to help move stock or keep the roads clear. Daniel had a gut feeling this flood would be bad – very bad. Here it was, Sunday morning, and the rain had not eased.
“Emma, this one’s going to be big. Make sure you lift everything up and get the boys to sandbag all the doors.”
Daniel collected his hat and all-weather coat. He’d been feeling his age of late and often got the younger men to do the hard digging down in the drains, while he managed the horses on the ridge. Summertime wasn’t too bad, but the winters were getting harder. Today he had no choice. “I’ve got to be off to clear the drains down the far end to see if we can stop it flooding across the road. Unlikely, but them’s the orders.”
“Be careful, Charlie, please,” Emma’s voice trembled. “But don’t worry about me. The boys’ll help.” Emma thrust a brown paper bag into his hand. “Here’s some sandwiches to keep you going.”
Daniel paused and took a second look at Emma. He bent and kissed her cheek – unusual for him of late. “You’ve been a good wife to me, mein Liebling.”
Before she could respond he had closed the door behind him.
The rain was torrential and rivulets were skimming across the surface of the driveway, dragging loose stones along, as Daniel mounted his faithful draught horse and set off.
“Charlie, get your brothers together and make sure everything is secure outside first. Put the stock into the high paddock and do something with that hay left behind the shed, then get back here and start sandbagging that back door before it gets any worse.” The urgency in his mother’s voice spurred young Charlie into action.
“Yes, Ma. Right away.”
“Good boy. Lizzie, help me here.”
Emma placed Amy in the large wicker basket that served as a carrycot on the floor by the coal range. “Clara, sit there with your sister and don’t move.” Emma’s sharp tone brooked no opposition.
“What shall I do, Ma?” asked Lizzie.
“First, we’ll make some bread. We’ll need to have some food in the hours to come. Then package up some cold meat and cheese and put it in a basket. Come on.”
So while the little ones played on the floor, Lizzie and Emma stocked up. Emma put a thick stew on to simmer while she could, knowing that hot food would be needed later. Once she and Lizzie had finished their tasks, Emma stood in the middle of the kitchen thinking how best to prepare for the worst.
The three boys burst into the kitchen one after the other, soaking wet and dripping everywhere, and arguing with one another.
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p; “Boots!” Emma pointed to their feet. “Out.”
In their haste, they had all come inside with their boots on. Sheepishly, they removed them and put them in the porch, shucked out of their jackets and took the towel Emma offered to dry themselves.
“I’ve done what you asked, Ma,” Charlie said, proud of his efforts. “But we need to do more work in the barn or Pa’ll lose all his tools. Is there anything to eat?”
“Lizzie, give them some of that bread and cold meat, will you? Thank you, boys. Your pa will be proud of you for helping me like this.”
Much to his disgust, Emma vigorously towelled Henry’s hair dry as she spoke.
“Ow!” he objected.
As quickly as they had arrived, they left again.
“Lizzie, help me push this table over there by the wall. Clear the chairs away and shove it right up into the corner. If all else fails, that’s our life raft.”
“You’re not serious, are you? The water won’t get in, will it?” Lizzie’s voice trembled, rising in alarm.
“It’s been through before, my sweet. But don’t worry; we won’t come to any harm. We need to be prepared.” Emma rubbed her hands up and down the girl’s arm, trying to calm her, despite her own misgivings.
“Here, hold Fred for me.” Ripping a few lengths of cloth from an old petticoat, she fashioned a harness and fitted it on Fred, securing it with a safety pin. “I need to be able to move around without worrying where he might have got to.”
She strapped Fred to the table leg. Indignant at being tied down, he struggled and bellowed at the top of his lungs. Emma handed him a wooden spoon with honey on it, wrapped string around some metal spoons tying them together, attached them to him to play with and left him to his own devices.
“Will he be all right, Ma?” Lizzie bit her bottom lip, as she looked sideways at her young brother.
Emma’s growing concern made her cross. “You’ve seen me do this before. Why all the questions? He’ll soon quieten down. Make yourself useful, girl. Line those chairs up back to back and tie them together.”
Emma lifted Amy in the basket up onto the table and sat Clara with her legs dangling over the edge, handing her a griddlecake from the large tin. Checking that Lizzie had finished the chairs, she said, “Right, I’ll tie them to the table legs. You start lifting everything up as high as you can. Go on with you. You know the routine.”
Emma, the boys and Lizzie worked steadily as the hours passed, and the floodwaters advanced in the surrounding paddocks. Every now and then she stopped long enough to feed Amy, or release Fred so he could sleep, or have Lizzie read to Clara who was bored and whining. After a while, Emma was satisfied they had done all they could for now, even knowing there would be little rest for her and the older ones in the hours to come. As the day darkened and the water continued to rise, Emma prepared food for them all.
“Say your prayers,” she said, as they took their plate of stew and slab of bread from her. They sat where they could, on whatever chair they could find, or cross-legged on the floor.
“Ma?” Young Charlie asked when everyone was eating, “I’ve seen floods before but this one is really bad, isn’t it?”
“Hush, boy. There’s no need for talk like that. You’ll scare the younger ones.” Emma’s voice was strong, but he could see the strain on her face and the worried look she cast out the kitchen window. Even after all the years of Daniel working to clear the floodwaters, she still worried he would be all right.
Emma’s anxiety played on Lizzie’s nerves, and she became more agitated as time passed. “Pa’s not home yet. Where is he?”
“He’s busy. He’ll be here when he can. Now stop bothering,” snapped Emma. Immediately regretting her tone, she thought how she could distract them all. “How about a story? Lizzie, you read.”
Reaching up into the high cupboard for the precious book of Robinson Crusoe, she handed it to Lizzie. It was a favourite of theirs. They often made comparisons with their own father who left England to travel to a far and distant land. Emma settled into one of the armchairs by the coal range, Fred curled up in her arms. Lizzie sat in the other, with Clara squeezed in beside her; the boys sat on the floor, their backs resting against whatever they could find.
Lizzie’s voice was steady. She had inherited her father’s ability to tell a good story and could animate her voice to match the characters and situation.
“ ‘But alas! for me to do wrong that never did right, was no great Wonder: I had no Remedy but to go on; I was gotten into an Employment quite remote to my Genius, and directly contrary to the Life I delighted in, and for which I forsook my Father’s House, and broke thro’ all his good Advice; nay, I was coming into the very Middle Station, or upper Degree of low Life, which my Father advised me to before; and which if I resolved to go on with, I might as well ha’ staid at Home, and never have fatigu’d my self in the World as I had done; and I used often to say to my self, I could ha’ done this as well in England among my Friends, as ha’ gone 5000 Miles off to do it among Strangers and Savages in a Wilderness, and at such a Distance, as never to hear from any Part of the World that had the least Knowledge of me.’ ”
Not long after Lizzie started reading, Fred and Clara fell asleep. Emma wrapped Fred up and put him on a pillow on the table beside Amy’s basket. Then she lifted Clara up, resting her head on the corner of the same pillow with her shawl over her. The corner by the wall was now full of sleeping babies. In the pitch dark, the torrential rain hammered the roof. Emma had no idea how high the water might be, but it couldn’t have dropped. There had been no let-up all day.
“Keep reading, Lizzie, there’s no reason to stop. It’ll be a long night yet,” she encouraged. It took all her strength to remain calm and pretend this flood was the same as any other, but it wasn’t. Emma knew there was trouble to come.
Lizzie did as she was bid, and they were soon so wrapped up with the excitement of the story, they almost forgot the weather outside. But the rain had not ceased. The water continued its relentless sweep across the land.
“Ma, look,” squeaked Lizzie, raising her eyes from the book at the end of a chapter to see a trickle of water oozing under the sandbags.
The boys leapt to their feet to rearrange the pile when their mother stopped them.
“Don’t touch!” Emma rarely raised her voice but when she did, it demanded immediate attention. “You’ll let more in. Try to stuff more in the gaps. Take the towels and blankets from the window and use them. Let’s hope there is enough to soak up the small amount coming through.”
Everyone’s nerves were now fully stretched. The wind whistling through the gaps in the windows didn’t help, but water coming through the door was more important than a little wind.
“Ma, it’s coming through the front door, too,” Charlie told her as he returned with some extra packing materials. She could tell he was frightened but hoped the others wouldn’t notice.
Despite their efforts the water continued to rise.
Emma made an extra effort to be calm and practical. “Get your coats and boots on, then gather whatever is left to keep warm. All we can do now is sit it out.”
She banked the coal range up, raised the cooking bar and the laundry rack as high as they could go, lit another lamp and hung it on a peg on the wall.
“Now up on the table with the lot of you. No point in standing in it and getting wet unless we have to.”
Once everyone was settled as best they could, Emma perched herself on the edge of the table. “Lizzie, keep reading for as long as you can, my dear. It will help us all.”
One by one the children dropped off into fitful sleep, leaning against one another. Lizzie had long given up reading, the lamp having guttered in the wind. Emma managed to lean against the wall to ease her aching back, but she could hear the water sloshing under her feet below and prayed it wouldn’t rise any higher.
The night seemed endless. Sleepless, Emma fretted about everything – the damage to the farm, her vegeta
ble crop, and where Daniel was. The children tossed restlessly, waking each other up, and full of complaints and grizzles she tried to soothe. At least they were dry, or as dry as they could be, but they weren’t warm. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her and tucked the blankets tighter over the youngest children.
At long last Monday morning arrived, and in the daylight they could see how bad it had been. They were forced to wade through the two feet of water that had washed through the house during the night. Lizzie put together some sort of breakfast from the food they had put away the day before, while Emma plodded her way out the front door to see if she could raise anyone.
The sight that met her was one she had never seen before or wanted to see again. There was water as far as the eye could see. If she had been a tearful person, she would have cried.
She saw Mr Stansell, the coach driver, taking his passengers by boat to the waiting ferry and had never been so relieved.
“Cooee,” she called out. “Cooee,” waving her hands above her head to attract his attention.
He was astonished to see her, thinking she was safe in town like everyone else. As soon as he had disembarked his passengers, he rowed over to rescue them.
“I am ever so pleased to see you,” Emma said as he rowed them all the way into Foxton. “Have you seen my Charlie?” was her first question.
“Aye. The last I saw of him he were wet through and tired, but thanks to him the water was diverted into the newly dug drains and the worst of it joined the river. He’s a hero, he is. He was at the council offices last I saw.”
“Is he all right?”
Even Mr Stansell could tell she was worried. “He’s exhausted, but he’ll be fine. No wonder he wanted to get home, but the bosses wouldn’t let him. Made him rest and have a cup of tea first. Well earned, if you ask me. Well earned. It were a bad one, Mrs Adin. I tell you that for nothing. Real bad.”
“You’re right there, Mr Stansell.”