Chapter Six

The grandfather clock in the corner of the drawing room struck the hour. Midnight.

‘Nineteen hundred and twelve just has to be better for us, sweetheart,’ Seth said.

He poured two measures of sweet white wine into glasses and handed one to Emma, who was sitting on the couch. She looked at him sadly and clasped the glass in her hands by the bowl so tightly that Seth thought the fine, Georgian glass might break. The glasses had been his mother’s pride and joy.

‘It has to be better, sweetheart, doesn’t it?’ Seth prompted her.

Emma nodded without speaking. Why is everything and everyone taken away from me? she’d said the night of the fire. I don’t do bad things to anyone. Seth had assured that she didn’t.

‘Perhaps,’ Emma said slowly, not looking at him, but staring into the middle distance, ‘I should have had the wood piled up further away. Or locked up. Or …’

‘It’s not your fault, sweetheart. The repairs to the bakery shouldn’t take too long, so Olly says,’ Seth told Emma. He hoped that bit of news might put a smile on her face – he’d never seen her looking so dejected. Olly had provided wood left over from boat-building to replace shelves burnt in the fire. And they’d both laboured after their own days’ work on building them. ‘Two weeks at the most,’ he added. ‘Maybe three.’ Not as soon as Emma would have liked, he knew that, but he was doing his best.

‘Three?’ Emma said.

‘At the most.’

Seth watched, feeling totally helpless, as a tear escaped the corner of her right eye and slid slowly down her cheek. She did nothing to wipe it away. But just as Seth reached in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe it away for her, she took one hand off her glass and swiped at it with the sleeve of her blouse. As though she didn’t want him to touch her.

‘I’ll get some good locks fitted,’ Seth said, his heart heavy that nothing he could do or say seemed to be lifting Emma’s mood. ‘And we’ll move the wood pile further away from the door. And I’ll store the petrol cans under lock and key.’

Emma gave him a half-smile and nodded almost imperceptibly.

‘Sergeant Emms is following up a sighting,’ he went on, quickly. ‘Harry Evans said he saw someone with a lantern creeping along the pavement outside his house, head bent low, when he was coming back from the inn.’

‘Or inns. Harry Evans is always in one inn or another,’ Emma said. ‘Anything Harry Evans saw would have been through the bottom of a glass.’

Possibly, Seth thought. But Harry Evans, for all his drinking ways, was a good man and their nearest neighbour, even though that was on the contour road below. Anyone wanting to get to Mulberry House would have to pass Harry Evans’s front door to get there.

‘If he could remember what he saw in the first place.’ Emma’s voice was flat, dull, uninterested almost. And it frightened him.

‘Harry said it was someone tall,’ Seth went on. ‘And thin. With a hat pulled down over his head almost to his shoulders.’

Emma nodded. ‘I know. You told me before.’ Another tear escaped and she blinked it away this time.

‘I’m sorry you lost the order with the Esplanade Hotel,’ Seth said, having to say something because he couldn’t bear the silences that came between them. ‘But there’ll be others.’

‘Perhaps,’ Emma said. ‘But there’s no point in asking if I can supply Deller’s Café now, is there?’

‘No, it might be best to wait a while.’

Emma had done her best to complete her order on the range in their kitchen, but the tarts had been burned at the edges while the filling remained uncooked. Henry Clarke at the Esplanade Hotel had not only withdrawn his own order, but had said he’d withhold recommending Emma to his business associates until such a time as she could prove she was worthy of recommendation. That had stung Emma – how could it not?

‘Drink up, sweetheart,’ Seth said.

But Emma didn’t drink. She put her glass down on a side-table and leaned back into the couch and began to howl.

Seth rushed to her, sat down beside her and pulled her towards him, wrapping her in his arms. He rocked her the way he’d seen her rocking Fleur. If he’d known any lullabies he would have sung one, but he didn’t.

‘I can’t do anything right,’ Emma said, sniffing into his shirt.

Seth felt the dampness of her tears soaking through, but he didn’t care – Emma had spoken. ‘None of this is your fault, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘The fire was started deliberately, you know that.’

‘It’s not the fire,’ Emma said, pulling away from him a little, but still looking at him. She kept swallowing as though she was having difficulty in finding the words for whatever it was she wanted to say.

‘What is it, then?’

‘I can’t …’ Emma sobbed, ‘… can’t even do what other women do even when they don’t want it to happen.’

‘Sweetheart, you’ve lost me there,’ Seth said.

‘It’s not going to happen,’ Emma said.

‘What isn’t?’

‘A baby, Seth. We’ve been making love since September and we haven’t always done it in the safe time, have we?’

Seth had to admit that they hadn’t. Emma was so desirable he wanted to make love to her all day every day if truth be told, and if he’d had the time and the stamina he would have done. He loved the way she glowed and looked even more beautiful after their loving.

‘And we’re not going to have one yet.’ Emma laid a hand on her stomach.

Ah, women’s things. The curse, as he’d heard it called. He knew now what Emma meant. She had the curse, although he wasn’t going to use that term at this precise moment.

‘Then we’ll have to keep on trying, Emma,’ Seth said. ‘Won’t we?’

‘More often?’ Emma said. The corners of her mouth twitched upwards and spread into a beam of a smile.

Seth heaved a huge sigh of relief – the old Emma was back.

‘As often as you like,’ Seth said. He reached for Emma’s glass and then went to fetch his own before sitting down beside her again. They chinked glasses.

‘To nineteen hundred and twelve and all that it will hold,’ Seth said.

‘And to us,’ Emma said. ‘Always to us.’

‘I don’t want any money,’ Emma said.

Seth had placed a £5 note and a handful of half-crowns on the kitchen table. All she wanted was to be able to get back to her business, but that wasn’t happening just yet.

‘It’s in lieu of what you would have earned if the bakery hadn’t been torched. You would have had two weeks’ profits if you’d been able to bake. I know Olly and I thought it would have been finished by now, but we have both been busy—’

‘It’s all right, Seth,’ Emma interrupted. ‘You don’t have to explain. I know you’re doing all you can.’

Fishing was the best it ever had been for Seth at this time of year and he was making sure he took advantage of it. He left the house without even stopping for breakfast sometimes, and he was never home before nightfall. Now he had the car, he was able to make local deliveries to hotels and cafés within hours of the fish being landed. And further afield, too. He wanted to be able to present good figures to any potential buyers, so he’d told Emma. No matter that the car stank of fish when they went out in it.

‘Take the money,’ Seth snapped at her.

‘I don’t want buying off,’ Emma snapped back – what was happening to them that they were so sharp with one another? Was it her own frustration in not becoming pregnant that was making her dissatisfied with Seth? And the unexpected arrival of Fleur in their lives, too? ‘You don’t understand. I can’t rely on you for money. I don’t want to. I know what it’s like to be left with nothing and I never, ever, want to be in that position again. You’ve never known what it’s like to be without.’

‘Without money, no – you’re right there. But I’ve known what it’s like to be without love.’

Was Seth meaning what she thought he was? That he was buying her love.

She chose not to ask.

Seth put his hand over the money and slid it further across the table towards her.

‘I’ll take the money for Fleur if that will make you feel better,’ she said.

Unbidden, the picture, which she knew would remain imprinted on her mind forever, popped into her head; the way Caroline Prentiss had dumped Fleur on the table in the bakery. And the coldness in her eyes as she’d done it. As though Fleur was of no consequence; easily got rid of the way anyone might discard a receipt for shoes or tea and cakes in a café when it was no longer needed.

‘Fleur’s growing by the minute and she’ll need bigger clothes soon,’ she went on, when Seth didn’t speak. He was just staring at her, almost as though he was looking through her. ‘She’s not so floppy when I prop her up against a cushion. I don’t think it’s going to be long before she’s sitting up unaided.’

‘Oh,’ he said, with what Emma thought was a genuinely puzzled look on his face. ‘Sitting up?’

‘Not yet. But soon. You’ve been so busy with the boats you’ve hardly been here to see her.’

Emma knew that sounded like a criticism, but she didn’t know how else she could have said it. It was true. Seth left the house before Emma had given Fleur her morning bath and the child was often asleep in her cot when Seth got home at night.

‘Like most fathers who have to earn a living, I would imagine,’ Seth said, and the coldness in his voice made Emma shiver. ‘There’s nothing unusual in that, Emma.’

And that’s me chastised, isn’t it? Emma thought. She took a deep breath. Yes, Seth was right. There had been days and days when her own papa had been at sea and she hadn’t seen him at all, or him her. If she was honest with herself, her memories of her papa only began from when she was five or six-years-old. She had few memories of him before that. And even then she could remember the nights her mama had tucked her into bed with a goodnight kiss when her father hadn’t been there to give her one, too.

And it would be the same for Fleur. She still had a lot to learn about parenting, didn’t she?

‘No, nothing unusual in it at all. I went a week or more sometimes without seeing my papa,’ Emma said. ‘I don’t mean to criticise you. I’m scratchier than an old army blanket today, aren’t I? Anyway, Mrs Drew is going to get some material from Brixham market on Saturday so I can make Fleur some warm night things. And a coat. She’s itching to be able to take Fleur out in a perambulator, when we’ve bought one, but says it’s far too cold still to take her out without a warm coat.’

Emma was beginning to see the wisdom her mama had shown in teaching her to sew, even though Emma had hated every stitch at the time.

‘You’ll be glad you learned some day,’ was what her mama had said every time Emma had grumbled about learning tacking stitch, and herringbone, and blanket stitch, and how to make buttonholes, and all the other things that went into making a garment. ‘And you do it very well. You’ve got a neat hand. You’ll be a better seamstress one day than I’ll ever be.’

Well, her mama had been right, Emma was glad to have something else she could do now she couldn’t bake until the bakery was refurbished. And, maybe she might even get to enjoy dressmaking as much as her mama had.

Seth blinked rapidly a few times as though coming back from some far-distant shore in his mind.

‘Take the money for Fleur, then,’ he said. ‘And order a perambulator from Pugh’s or wherever it is they sell them.’

Order a perambulator! Just like that! They cost at least fifteen guineas and that was for the cheapest one. She’d seen an advert in the Herald and Express. Seth didn’t have a clue what it was like to struggle for every penny, did he?

And I don’t know why I’m being such a crosspatch either, Emma thought. No, that wasn’t true – she did know. It didn’t look like she was going to fall pregnant this month either.

‘You do understand, don’t you?’ Emma tried again. ‘Why I want to keep my life with you and my business separate?’

‘I’m trying,’ Seth said.

‘I’m not going to let the fire stop me running a business, even though it’s going to be twice as hard now I’m back to square one almost with finding clients.’

‘Hell will freeze over before anything stops you doing what you want to do, Emma Jago.’

‘Is that a compliment?’

‘It is,’ Seth said. ‘But I’m older than you are and I’ve had more experience of things. We have to get used to disappointment. Take Captain Scott …’ Seth reached for the newspaper and turned the pages over rapidly looking for something.

‘What about him?’

Emma knew Captain Scott was making a second attempt to reach the South Pole, and she wondered why he’d been brought into the conversation. No doubt, when Seth had found whatever it was he was looking for, she’d find out.

‘See this,’ he said, jabbing a finger on the page. ‘He reached his goal only to find some Norwegian had got there before him. Imagine how that must have felt.’

‘Nineteen hundred and twelve isn’t getting off to a good start for Captain Scott either, then, is it?’ Emma said.

She took the newspaper from him and read. ‘January 17th. After a journey hampered by unusually bad weather, the five Britons arrived at the bottom of the world to find a tent and other traces of the expedition led by Roald Amundsen.’

Seth was right, of course he was. Emma felt quite close to Captain Scott and his disappointment in that moment. But she had a feeling it wouldn’t stop the man achieving, just like a fire in her bakery wasn’t going to stop her.

She closed the newspaper.

‘I’m sorry I’m such a crosspatch at the moment,’ she told Seth. He was about to leave for the harbour to oversee his boats catching the afternoon tide and she didn’t want them to part with any bad feeling between them. The thought he might leave without giving her a kiss, as he always did, was chilling her. ‘Forgive me?’ she said.

For answer Seth kissed her softly. Then the kiss began to linger, deepen. It told her everything she wanted to know.

Seth was a good man, and she was the luckiest woman in the world to have his unquestioning love, even when she was more snappy than a dog in a heatwave. She ought to be the happiest woman in the world, but there was a fly in the ointment, as her mama would have said. Another letter addressed to her with Matthew’s writing on the envelope had been hand-delivered that morning by Tom the gardener at Nase Head House. Thank goodness Seth had been in his study, and hadn’t heard Tom’s knock.

January limped into a mild, but wet, February and still the repairs weren’t finished to Emma’s bakery. She was now down to just the one regular order for six savoury tarts every other day for the Port Light and she was only just about coping with that on the kitchen range. Ruby had promised to call today to help, but Emma could have done the order with one hand tied behind her back, she knew she could. But it would be good to see Ruby.

The letter from Matthew, which Tom had brought round weeks ago now, remained unread. But although unread, it hadn’t been destroyed. This time she hadn’t been able to bring herself to burn the letter. It lay where she’d put it, in the deep front pocket of her apron. Matthew might be in trouble. He might need her. Want her help. He’d helped her once. His letter seemed to be burning a hole in her pocket the way a threepenny bit had the time when she’d found one in the street; to spend it on sweets in Minifie’s or to give it to her mama for food? In the end the sweets had won out and she’d felt not a little guilty ever since. She knew she’d feel guilty if Matthew needed help – he must badly need to get in touch to have written another letter so soon after the first.

She’d had plenty of private and alone opportunities to read the letter before now. Why hadn’t she? she wondered. But something was making her want to read it now. Did she have time before Ruby arrived?

Emma took a deep breath. Counted. One, two, three. Go. She reached for the paperknife and cut the seal on the envelope.

2229 Bailey Street

New York

January 8th 1912

My dear Emma,

Yes, it’s a letter from me – Matthew. I can almost hear you questioning it as you open the envelope, because I would bet my last cent (see how American I have become in such a short time) that that’s one little trait you still retain. And it’s another letter actually – this is the seventh and my guess is you didn’t get the others (if, indeed, you even get this one) as you haven’t replied, which I think you would have done had you received them. All have said much the same thing. That I think of you often and wonder how you are. I did ask Rupert Smythe how you were when I wrote him about business matters, but he didn’t speak of you in his reply. I do so hope you haven’t married him. Have you? Please say you haven’t. Although I imagine he might have mentioned it if you have. But I hope you haven’t. If you have, I can only apologise for placing you under his roof. I know now it must have felt like a gift from God to him that you were there – and so very beautiful – especially after his wife, Claudine, died. I’m being presumptuous in saying he would never make you happy – or as happy as I could make you given different circumstances for us both. As good a man as Rupert is in many ways, he is not the right husband for you. Seth Jago? Perhaps you have married him instead?’

‘Well, you don’t get any less sure of yourself do you, Matthew Caunter?’ Emma said, as she turned the sheet of paper over to read the other side. She knew she should be feeling cross reading Matthew’s words, and the arrogance in them, but she was smiling all the same. She’d lived under the same roof as Matthew long enough to know he spoke his mind.

She continued reading.

‘I rather hope you haven’t though. Because while Seth might be right for you now, I think by the time you have …’

‘Cocky,’ Emma said aloud, as she scrunched the thin paper of Matthew’s letter into a ball in the palm of her hand, ‘was a word coined for your personal use, I think.’

She wasn’t going to bother reading any more. There was a frisson of excitement mixed with fear that even if she were – legally – married to Seth and told Matthew so, it wouldn’t stop him writing to her. Part of her wanted to un-scrunch the letter and read to the end, but she wasn’t going to let Matthew, despite there being an ocean between them at that moment, weaken her resolve. Writing back to him, even to chastise him for his cheek in saying what he had, would be dangerous. She’d have to do it in secret. But she and Seth had promised there’d be no secrets between them.

And then the door flew open, making Emma jump.

Seth? Her heart hammering in her chest, and with her nails digging deep into the palm of her hand over Matthew’s scrunched up letter, she turned round to face the door.

But it was only Ruby.

‘Well, Emma Jago, ’ave I got some good news fer you?’ Ruby said, pushing the kitchen door shut behind her. ‘I told Mr Smythe about the fire and ’e said ’e’d already ’eard. ’E said he might be able to ’elp you. Let you use the kitchens at Nase Head House. We ain’t got a lot of guests in at the moment and the cook sits twiddlin’ ’is fingers most of the time. ’E said I could tell you now, seein’ as I was comin’ ’ere, but ’e’s goin’ to write to you.’ Ruby carried on, without giving Emma a chance to get a word in. ‘I saw Seth on the way ’ere and told ’im about Mr Smythe’s offer and ’e said you’d refuse. It’s no use you bleatin’ like a lost lamb that your business ’as ground to an ’alt if you don’ let people ’elp.’

‘Not to a dead halt, it hasn’t. I’ve still got the Port Light order. And oughtn’t you to knock before coming in here and lecturing me?’

‘Yeah, I should, but I didn’t. Sorry. I thought you’d be pleased about what I’ve just said. I think Mr Smythe is bein’ very kind to you.’

‘I’m suspicious of his motives. You seem to have forgotten he threw me out of the hotel because I stood up for Seth – in his absence – the night Carter Jago was hanged. He told me, if I thought so much of a man from a criminal family, then I could go to him. So I did!’

And he hadn’t been best pleased that I had rejected his offer of marriage and showed him up in front of a roomful of guests either, Emma thought but didn’t say. Ruby didn’t know that Mr Smythe had proposed to Emma when she’d been working at Nase Head House. The last thing Emma wanted was to go back there.

‘Well, from what I ’eard you gave ’im a right mouthful that night.’

‘He deserved it,’ Emma said. ‘He knows nothing about Seth and to tar him with the same brush as his pa and his brothers was plain wrong!’

‘Hey! Don’ get uppity with me,’ Ruby said. ‘There’s me thinkin’ I were bringin’ good news on me afternoon off and you’m sharper than a drawer full of razor blades.’

‘Sorry,’ Emma said.

‘Forgiven,’ Ruby said.

‘You didn’t tell Seth anything else, did you?’

‘Like what? Like the letters I’ve rescued from Mr Bell’s wastepaper bin? The one Tom brought over ’cos I asked him to? I thought you might—’

‘Yes, that,’ Emma interrupted.

‘Aw, gawd, Em, what are you up to?’

‘Nothing. And that’s the truth.’ But all the same, it would be best if Seth didn’t know about the letters.

‘If you ain’t up to somethin’, then someone what’s writin’ you letters wants you to do somethin’ you shouldn’. Am I right?’

‘I can’t answer that.’

‘Answer this then. Who are the letters from, Em?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Well, it ain’t bleedin’ Father Christmas, I know that. Nor the Pope neither. And I’d bet my last farthin’ you ain’t goin’ to tell me who they’re from, are you?’

Emma shook her head, and Ruby sighed theatrically.

‘What d’you want me to do if I find another one with the same fancy scrawl? I know for a fact the two I’ve passed on ain’t the only ones because Mr Bell said as much when ’e flung the one I slipped to Tom to bring over in the bin. There’ll be others. Whoever’s writin’ ’em ain’t givin’ up on you, is ’e?’

‘How do you know it’s a “he”?’

‘’Ow do I know I’m called Ruby Chubb? ’Cos it’s a fact, and you know it.’

Emma’s head was spinning with a maelstrom of thoughts at that moment. If Mr Smythe should see one of Matthew’s letters and recognise the handwriting he might open it and read it. Mr Bell could tell Mr Smythe that letters were being sent to the hotel for her and he might want to know by whom, and why. Someone might tell Seth.

‘Keep bringing me as many letters as you find, Ruby,’ Emma said. ‘Please. And please don’t tell anyone you’re doing it, and ask Tom not to say either. To anyone.’

‘And especially not to Seth?’ Ruby said.

‘For the moment,’ Emma said.

‘Hmm,’ Ruby said, chewing on her bottom lip. ‘Don’ tell me no more. I don’ want to know no secrets I don’ want to keep.’

And we’ll leave it at that for the moment, Emma thought, as an uneasy silence – one that had never been between the two friends before – hung heavy in the air, the way the smell of freshly laid dung on the fields did. Emma put just enough water in the kettle to make two cups of tea and she and Ruby stood and watched it boil in silence. Then Emma took two cups from their hooks on the dresser and set them onto two saucers.

‘If you take up Mr Smythe’s offer, you could make one of them fancy tatty tarts you used to make up at the ’otel.’

‘Tarte tatin,’ Emma said, relieved that Ruby had dropped the subject of the letters. How Mr Smythe had loved his tartes tatin! She’d had to make one most days, in between tutoring his twin sons in French and looking after his infant daughter, that is.

She’d missed the children, and Ruby, of course, but there was nothing else about Nase Head House that she missed.

‘Them, then,’ Ruby said. ‘Whatever it is you call ’em. Call yourself a businesswoman? If you was up there doin’ your order, then you could just slip one of your tart tatty in the oven alongside and before you know it Mr Smythe’d be singin’ your praises again to all and sundry. You need orders, don’t you? An’ Mr Smythe could provide the wherewithal for you to ’ave ’em. Now, where’s that little maid you want me to look after while you do a bit of bakin’?’

‘Upstairs in her cot,’ Emma said, laughing. However hard she tried she was never going to get Ruby to pronounce tarte tatin correctly. And Ruby did have a point about Mr Smythe being a conduit to her business. ‘I’ll go and fetch her.’

‘Good,’ Ruby said. ‘And that’s another thing I want to tell you. When I told Mr Smythe ’ow you’m adopting Seth’s cousin’s poor orphaned baby, ’e said ’e’d misjudged you.’

‘Orphaned?’ Emma said. ‘Fleur’s father is still alive. He’s …’

Gosh, how easily the lie came.

‘So you said,’ Ruby grinned. ‘But I thought it made a better story if ’er were a complete orphan.’

‘You little schemer,’ Emma said, hugging her friend.

‘You an’ me both, eh?’ Ruby said. ‘Now are you goin’ to get that little maid or am I marchin’ straight back to Nase Head House?’

‘Two minutes,’ Emma said, running for the door. She turned back to look at Ruby. ‘But you’re going to have to keep your eyes on her because she’s started to crawl. And she’s trying to pull herself up on the furniture. She nearly had a side table with a glass of water on it over yesterday.’

‘And you’re going to dispose of whatever it is you’re clutchin’ for dear life in your right ’and before you come back with ’er, aren’t you?’

‘You don’t miss a trick!’ Emma said.

‘No. And ain’t you glad I’m your friend and not your enemy?’

‘God help me if you were,’ Emma laughed. ‘But you can be my witness as I consign it to the flames.’

Emma scrunched up the letter a bit more for good measure, pulled back the cover on the range and threw it into the fire.

Oh, how good it was to have Ruby back in her life again.

As Emma had thought he would be, Seth was less than keen for her to use the kitchen at Nase Head House to advance her business. So she’d politely, but firmly, informed Mr Smythe, when he’d written to formally invite her to use his premises, that she wouldn’t be taking up his offer.

She’d had to wait until the end of February before her bakery was finished, though. But now, as March crept slowly along, orders had begun to build up again. She even had the Esplanade Hotel contract back.

March storms were whipping up in the bay at regular intervals, which meant that Seth’s boats were often in harbour rocking dangerously on their moorings instead of being at sea, and it had lifted Emma’s confidence that she was bringing in money to the household when Seth couldn’t.

It was so cold that there were fingers of ice on the pavements to catch the unwary and Beattie Drew had slipped and sprained an ankle badly. So now Emma had to do her own housework as well as everything else, although Beattie Drew was able to keep an eye on Fleur when Emma pushed the baby in her perambulator down to Shingle Cottage on the mornings when Seth couldn’t take her in the car because he had to be somewhere else. More time out of Emma’s day, but at least she knew Fleur was being well cared for and it gave her a chance to check on how Beattie was.

In the house, Emma woke every morning to patterns of ferns on the insides of the windows: Jack Frost had passed by and left his calling card, her mama had always said.

‘See, Fleur,’ Emma said. ‘Jack Frost’s been again and painted the windowpane for you. Isn’t that beautiful?’

Fleur blew bubbles and smiled. She grasped Emma’s forefinger with her whole tiny hand. How perfect the nails were, how flawless her skin. Emma ran her fingers through Fleur’s coal-black hair – how straight it was, just like Seth’s, and how soft. Fleur’s hair seemed to be growing faster than the rest of her was and it flopped in front of her eyes, so that Emma had to struggle to keep it tied back with a ribbon. She’d have to cut it soon, although she knew superstition had it that the longer a baby’s hair was kept un-cut, the stronger the baby would be in life. Perhaps she’d leave it for the time being.

Emma’s monthly was a day late and she could hardly breathe for excitement. She’d never been late before. Was she going to have a baby at last? She hoped so. Part one of her plan to have a child with Seth so that their child and Fleur could grow up together, be companions, was working at last, wasn’t it? The plan that wasn’t working, though, was that if she didn’t respond to Matthew’s letters – one arrived most weeks now, delivered by Ruby – he’d stop writing. So far, each had been consigned to the fire in the range without being read, apart from the one that had been crumpled in her hand the day Ruby had disturbed her reading it. And just as she’d let Ruby witness her burning that one, so she’d thrown each letter Ruby now brought to the same fate.

‘Time to get you ready, mademoiselle,’ Emma said. ‘Papa’s taking you to Mrs Drew’s today.’

She bustled about putting a clean nappy on the baby, then dressing her warmly. Ruby had bought Fleur the prettiest coat in a deep green with crimson embroidery on the collar from a jumble sale, and Beattie Drew had knitted a bonnet to match. Dear old Beattie Drew, Emma thought, what would she do without her? Although Beattie wasn’t coughing quite so much now, the walk up the hill to Mulberry House was out of the question with her sprained ankle. Emma was worried that Beattie wasn’t telling her the half of how she felt, or what happened at night when illnesses were often worse than they were during the day.

‘There, don’t you look the ticket?’ Emma kissed Fleur on the nose before placing her back in her cot. ‘Mrs Drew will probably kiss you to death! Oh, here’s Papa now.’

‘Ah, good. All ready, I see.’ Seth sounded impatient.

‘On time,’ Emma said. ‘You did say a quarter past eight and it’s only just that.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Seth said. He bent to pick up Fleur from her cot, grabbing her roughly, making her cry. ‘Ssh, now, there’s a good girl.’

But Fleur wouldn’t be shushed.

‘Seth, what’s wrong?’ Emma said. ‘I know you. You didn’t look at me when you came in and you usually do. And now you’ve made Fleur cry because you’re handling her roughly. She’s picked up on your mood.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Babies don’t pick up on moods. They’re just babies.’

Emma sighed loudly. What did Seth know about babies really? And what did she know, for that matter, but she had noticed that when she laughed, Fleur did, too. And if she was impatient to be getting on with something, then Fleur was always more fractious than usual.

But there was no time to talk about all that now.

‘Where are you going so early?’ Emma said. ‘Is it to do with the boats?’

Seth had picked up Fleur now, but had his back to Emma still. He spun round, startling the baby in his arms.

But it was Emma who had the more startled look in her eyes when Seth said, ‘Better you hear it from me than someone else. Caroline Prentiss hasn’t gone to America. Her pa’s ill and she’s back in town.’