Chapter Fifteen

‘Mr Seth?’ Ruby hissed between her teeth. Her eyes were wide and round and terrified as she scuttled up to him in the foyer of Nase Head House – shoulders hunched, arms twisted in front of her as though she was desperately trying to disappear. ‘What are you doing ’ere?’ She untangled her arms and flapped them around in a demented way, much as seagulls flap their wings when they’re fighting over a scrap of food. ‘Does Mr Smythe know you’re ’ere?’

‘He’s out. I saw Tom in the garden and he told me so. It’s you I’ve come to see. Where can we go to speak in private? And you don’t have to call me Mr Seth. Just Seth will do. You’re not my servant. And I’m your friend’s husband.’

A lie, but Ruby wasn’t to know that. At least he hoped Emma hadn’t been unwise enough to tell Ruby that she and Seth weren’t legally married because what might the girl do or say in an unguarded moment?

Seth had marched in through the front door of Nase Head House like a man possessed. Emma had told him she didn’t know Caunter’s address because she’d burned his letters and not made a note of it. She said he could search every single drawer in the house if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He believed her. He had to. But he had to let Caunter know beyond any doubt that he didn’t want him writing to Emma, ever again.

So now he was here to see Ruby. The florid-faced chap on reception had nearly choked when Seth had given his name and said he wanted to see Ruby Chubb. But a sovereign coin slid across the desk towards him ensured that Ruby was sent for.

‘Whatever I call you, I’ll get the big ’eave-’o if Mr Smythe knows you’re ’ere. What’s wrong? Is it Emma?’

‘Mr Smythe isn’t going to know because I’ve paid him’ – Seth jerked a thumb towards the man on reception – ‘not to know. And Emma’s fine. I need to talk to you.’

‘Aw gawd,’ Ruby said. ‘I’ve got a feelin’ in me innards – like ’ow it grumbles when I oughtn’t to ’ave ate so many iced buns – I know what it is you’ve come about.’

‘And I’ve got a feeling you’re right. Now, where can we go?’

‘In the dinin’ room,’ Ruby said. ‘I’m supposed to be settin’ it up fer a luncheon, not that it’s my job to do that, but wouldn’t you know there’s two who think this is part-time work they’re doing ’ere, the way they’m always going sick. I—’

‘Lead the way,’ Seth said.

Ruby skittered across the foyer and into the dining room as though the hounds of hell were after her.

Seth shut the door firmly behind them.

‘I ’ope you ain’t given Emma an ’ard time over them letters. ’Er didn’t want ’em and that’s the truth – well ’er ’ad one or two, but the rest’s in me room. ’Er said not to bring ’em over,’ Ruby blurted out.

So Emma had told the truth – Ruby was keeping Caunter’s letters. The poor girl was shaking.

‘I believe her. But you’ve got some here and I’d like you to give them to me.’

Ruby stopped shaking and stiffened up. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and tucked her hands under her armpits. ‘I ain’t doing that. They ain’t your letters. They’re Emma’s. Got ’er name on an’ all. Well, the one she ’ad before she married you. It should be obvious Mr Caunter only wrote ’em ’cos ’e didn’ know Emma had married you. So you see, I can’t give ’em to you.’

Grudgingly, Seth could only admire Ruby’s honesty and loyalty to a friend. He thought for a moment.

‘Could you take them to Emma?’

‘No, ’er said ’er never wanted ’em. I got to abide by what ’er said.’

‘So why are you keeping them?’ Seth asked, clutching at straws now.

‘Gawd, but men are daft sometimes, aren’t they? ’Tis a woman’s perry ogatiff to change ’er mind.’

The smile Seth didn’t want to give came anyway at Ruby’s amusing mispronunciation of ‘prerogative’. ‘Can we strike a compromise?’

‘Strike what you like as long as it ain’t Emma, but I ain’t givin’ them to you.’

Ruby pressed her lips together so hard it looked, to Seth, as though she might have swallowed them.

‘Could you copy out Caunter’s address and let me have it?’ Seth asked. He slipped a hand inside his jacket pocket and extracted his wallet. He opened it as Ruby watched, wide-eyed.

‘’An ’ow would I be doin’ that seein’ as I can’t read nor write? Well, not much I can’t. It were Mr Bell what told me there was a letter addressed to Emma and I said I’d take it to ’er. So I know what ’er name looks like written down now, don’t I?’

Seth opened his wallet and pulled out a £5 note. A crisp new one. He’d especially asked for new notes at the bank with which to tempt her. He had three more waiting if Ruby refused this one.

‘And you can put that back where it came from. You ain’t buying me off. Emma would be outer-raged, absolutely outer-raged, if she knew you was doing that. I’ve arranged to see ’er tomorrow on me ’alf-day and I’m goin’ to tell ’er what you’ve said. ’Er’ll be outer-raged.’

Again, Seth had to suppress a smile – no wonder Emma loved Ruby’s company so, with the funny way she had of saying things. There was a charm in being as badly educated as Ruby. But pride, too. And loyalty.

Seth decided not to insult her by offering more money. He put the £5 note back in his wallet. He’d have to find out Caunter’s address by another route. Caunter had been a friend of Smythe’s, so the man would probably have his address. It had to be on the premises somewhere. And the man on the reception desk wouldn’t have the strong scruples about being paid for information he ought not to give, that Ruby had.

Emma was dreading Ruby’s visit. Seth had told her – almost verbatim, she was sure of it – about his visit to Nase Head House and his exchange with Ruby. Now Ruby would soon be here, to keep an eye on Fleur while Emma continued with her quest to find the perfect bûche de Noël recipe, and there was a churning in Emma’s stomach like a pot of stock boiling. Seth hadn’t gone back to work after lunch yet. She had a feeling he was waiting for Ruby.

It wasn’t long before Ruby marched into the bakery, slamming shut the door against the wind. She was holding a bundle of letters in her hand.

‘Are you going to throw this lot in that gurt oven of yours, or am I?’ Ruby said without preamble. ‘They’m like poison now your Seth knows about ’em. I didn’t give ’em to ’im, though, never mind ’e tried to bribe me!’

‘I know. He told me. Thank you for being such a true and loyal friend. He told me about that, too. Oh,’ Emma said, as she saw Seth walk past the window. ‘Here he is now.’

Ruby’s hands began to shake, the letters flapping like leaves in a breeze.

‘Don’t worry,’ Emma said. ‘Seth won’t be cross with you.’ She walked to the door to let Seth in, show she was glad to see him. She knew what she had to do now.

‘Ruby,’ Seth said, with a nod of acknowledgement.

‘They’m ’ere,’ Ruby’s hands shook even more now as she clutched the letters close to her chest. ‘All of ’em in case you’m wonderin’, and you’ll ’ave to take my word fer it.’

‘I do,’ Seth said.

‘I’ll take them,’ Emma said. She held out her hands for the letters.

‘’Er ain’t read ’em, Seth,’ Ruby said, ‘’Onest.’

‘I said I believe you,’ Seth said. He turned to Emma. ‘And you. I was going to ask that oaf on the reception desk—’

‘Old Frosty Drawers?’ Ruby interrupted. ‘You don’t want to tell him nothin’.’

‘I didn’t tell him anything, Ruby,’ Seth said, with a sigh. ‘If you’ll let me finish I was going to say I was going to ask him for Caunter’s address, but decided against it. The fewer people who know our business the better it will be.’

‘Well, Tom knows,’ Ruby said. ‘Only ’e won’t tell ’cos ’e knows ’e won’t be gettin’ any more you-know-what with me if ’e do.’

‘Ruby!’ Emma said. ‘This is no time for jokes.’

‘It id’n a joke, Em. It’s bribery. Men can be so daft sometimes, can’t they?’

‘The letters,’ Emma said, choosing not to comment. She held out her hands, palm upwards.

Slowly, Ruby unclasped her arms and proffered the letters.

And in one swift movement Emma snatched them, rushed over to the oven, yanked on the iron door and threw the whole lot into the flames.

There, the letters had gone and with Ruby, once more, as witness.

And that should be the end of that. But would it be? The letters had gone but Matthew was coming to her in dreams now, every night. If only there was a place where unbidden dreams could go.

Still, she saw relief lighten Seth’s eyes, and he smiled.

‘Right, my lady, there’s … somethin’ botherin’ … you the way ’ot weather bothers … a dog. What … is it?’

Beattie’s voice was weak and her breathing laboured and the sentence had taken twice as long to come out as it would have done before her illness. But Emma knew she was stupid to think she could hide anything from her. Things might have reverted to how they’d always been between her and Seth this past fortnight, since she’d burned all Matthew’s letters, but still Emma’s mind was troubled.

‘I’m worried about you,’ Emma said.

The truth, but not the truth Beattie was alluding to.

Emma watched as Beattie took a vial of something from the bedside cabinet and swallowed it. She expected Beattie to remonstrate with her for evading the question, but she didn’t. It was as though Beattie was waiting for whatever had been in the vial to give her strength.

Beattie had been in the cottage hospital for three weeks now and each time Emma visited she could see her slipping further away from her. Beattie was hardly bigger than a ten-year-old lying under the thin coverlet now, her once large bosoms shrunk and the skin on her chest shrivelled like dried up plums. Beattie’s usually florid cheeks were paler than milk, and her eyes watery. Oh to have Beattie well again and clutching Fleur to those bosoms so tight that Emma was often alarmed she’d smother the child.

‘You’m … worried?’ she said at last. ‘I’m worried … and … my Edward’s worried. ’E … can’t so much … as … boil an egg … proper. An’ ’e’s afraid … ’e’ll ’ave … to before too … long.’ Again, it took a long time for her to get the words out.

Emma couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that so instead she began smoothing out the coverlet on Beattie’s hospital bed. All the coverlets on the ward were a nauseous shade of green and it crossed her mind that patients might feel better if they were a brighter colour: even beige would have been an improvement.

‘Don’t say such things,’ Emma managed to say eventually.

‘And don’t you go … evadin’ … the question. I … asked …’

Emma froze inside as Beattie was overcome by another bout of coughing. She reached for the kidney bowl and held it in front of Beattie’s mouth and did her best not to look when the bowl was spattered with blood. But she’d seen. And she knew what it meant.

A nurse looked up from a patient she was tending and shook her head sadly at Emma, confirmation that Beattie’s operation in the county hospital up in Exeter hadn’t been a success, if any were needed.

Emma did the best she could wiping Beattie’s mouth and chin. She poured water from a jug into a glass and held it to Beattie’s lips.

The woman was dying and they both knew it. Blood was seeping through the front of Beattie’s nightdress, despite the wound having been heavily dressed with lint and gauze after the operation to remove whatever it was had been in Beattie’s lungs.

‘Thank you, lovie. You’m a gem and … no mistake. I ’ope they ain’t goin’ to keep me ’ere long.’ A pause. A long, long pause. ‘I want to … die in me own bed like … any … sensible person would.’

‘Don’t!’ Emma said. She struggled to keep her tears behind her eyes. What use would she be to Beattie if she made her feel worse by crying?

Beattie reached for Emma’s hand, clutched it in her skinny, claw-like fingers. How had Emma not noticed how thin Beattie had become in the weeks before Edward had come to the bakery to tell her his ma wouldn’t be coming in to work?

‘Now listen,’ Beattie said. ‘And no questions. No … interruptin’ like you usually do … neither. Understand?’

Emma nodded.

Beattie took as big a breath as she was able to manage. ‘They found ’alf a dozen gurt lumps, lovie,’ Beattie said, speaking slowly, but without the breaks in her words this time. It was as though she was dredging up strength from some unknown force and that frightened Emma.

‘Maybe—’ Emma began, but Beattie stopped her.

‘’Ush. It were bigger’n the turnips Farmer Yeo brings down to the market and they’m big enough. They found ’em when they opened me up, so they cut ’em out and stitched me up again. Not very neatly, I have to say. So, that’s me lot.’

‘Oh, no! Beattie, no! There must be something that can be done.’

‘There isn’.’

Interrupting Emma so quickly made Beattie cough again. More blood. When she breathed in, very wheezily now, Emma went rigid with fright that she might never breathe out again.

But the coughing and the wheezing subsided. Beattie was ready to speak again. ‘Trust me. Your Seth told the doctor he’d pay. For anythin’. Money ain’t goin’ to save me now.’

Seth had done that? He hadn’t said. But I shouldn’t be surprised he has, should I? Emma thought. It was how Seth was. Generous and kind. Since the incident with the letters. he’d not mentioned them again, and had been just as loving to her as he’d always been.

He’d put it behind him and Emma was struggling to do the same. And was hating herself that she was finding it difficult.

‘So before I … pops … off, you’m goin’ to tell me … what it is that’s botherin’ you.’

Am I? Emma thought. What could she say? Matthew writing to me has churned up all sorts of feelings I thought I’d forgotten? Thought I’d hidden deep inside me?

‘You’ve been … like a daughter to me. If the last …’ Beattie’s voice began to break and Emma wasn’t sure if it was with emotion or some other thing, like death, she didn’t really want to think about.

‘Ssh,’ Emma said. ‘Don’t weaken yourself.’

‘… the last voice,’ Beattie struggled on, as though Emma hadn’t spoken, ‘I ’eard on … on … this earth were yours, lovie, then … I’d die an ’appy woman.’

‘Oh, Beattie,’ Emma said. And the tears she’d been struggling to keep back spilled over and dampened the nauseous green sheet.

A nurse came over and said Emma wasn’t to tire Beattie, and Beattie protested that she wanted to hear what it was Emma had to say and she wasn’t tired, but it had set off another bout of coughing, worse than the bout before and with more blood this time. The nurse filled a syringe with something and injected it in Beattie’s thigh and Emma had to turn away at the sight of Beattie’s scrawny leg, which seemed to be the same shade of green as the coverlet.

A screen was dragged around Beattie’s bed to give them some privacy.

So Emma did as Beattie asked. In a quiet voice so no one could overhear, she told. How the first time she’d seen Matthew her heart had almost jumped out of her chest because there’d been something about him, something that made her gravitate towards him when she knew she ought to have turned and run. And how she knew he had squashed down his feelings, too, because he had been married and she had been underage.

She told Beattie about Matthew’s letters and Seth’s reaction to them, and how Ruby had been asked to put a match to any more that arrived at Nase Head House and how she’d said she would. So far no more had arrived and Emma said it felt almost disappointing that they hadn’t, and wasn’t she a horrible – disloyal to Seth – person for thinking that?

Beattie had shaken her head at that, and she’d tried to say something, but only frothy mucus came out and sat in the corners of her lips until Emma wiped it away with a corner of the coverlet because nothing else was to hand and she didn’t want to stop the flow of her words – the cleansing of her soul – to go and find something.

Beattie’s eyelids fluttered and she kept closing her eyes then opening them a fraction, just slits really, before closing them again as Emma spoke.

‘It might be better if I could have a baby with Seth,’ Emma whispered, although in her heart she doubted it.

Oh, what was she going to do? She’d never expected to be feeling this and she told Beattie so. On and on she talked until her throat was sore from it. She laid her head gently on Beattie’s hands. Beattie seemed to be breathing fast and shallow and Emma found her words coming out to the same rhythm. Then the rhythm changed and Beattie breathed in just as shallowly, but it seemed an age before she breathed out again.

And then the rhythm stopped. And Emma knew. Beattie had simply stopped breathing and taken Emma’s secret with her, a smile on her face.

Emma yowled then. Loud and piercing like an animal’s cry in the night. Her mouth opened wider and she screamed and screamed and didn’t know how to stop.

A nurse rushed over and put an arm round Emma’s shoulders and gently smoothed her hair, and her kindness overwhelmed Emma so that her screams turned to sobs.

‘Isn’t it what everyone wants? To die with someone they love, and to have someone who loves them beside them?’ the nurse said.

I don’t know, Emma wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat, threatening to choke her. Her papa had died, and her mama and Johnnie, and no one had been with them. The very thought of how dreadful that must have been for them, if what the nurse was saying was true, only served for Emma to cry even harder.

The nurse took the glass Beattie had drunk from only minutes earlier and refilled it. She handed it to Emma. ‘Drink. Water’s as good for shock as brandy is.’

Emma did as she was told and found it was impossible to drink and cry at the same time. The crying stopped. But not the deep sadness inside her that the last thing Beattie had heard was Emma sounding very disloyal to Seth, whom Beattie had adored. Would she ever forgive herself for that? She hadn’t even told Beattie that she loved her. And she had. She’d loved her very, very much.

‘You’re not to blame yourself, Mrs Jago,’ the nurse said. She pulled Emma from the chair, put an arm on her shoulder, and began to lead her from the ward. ‘Mrs Drew’s heart was weak from her illness and the operation had weakened it further. It’s a blessing she went now, and so quietly.’

Beattie was laid to rest in the cemetery at St Mary’s on December 4th. Although Emma and Seth had vowed never to step into St Mary’s ever again, they both swallowed their scruples and went along to pay their respects to their old friend. They’d never have forgiven themselves if they hadn’t. And had anyone – Olly for example – asked why they weren’t at the funeral they could hardly have said because the Reverend Thomson had refused to marry them, could they?

There had been sleet in the air when the mourners stood around Beattie’s grave as she was lowered into it. The sleet turned to hailstones that hit Emma’s cheeks like bullets, but she bore the pain without swiping them away – punishment for her selfish act at Beattie’s bedside. Regardless of what the nurse had said, Emma knew she’d carry the guilt of that with her to the end of her days.

Seth paid for Beattie’s funeral. All Beattie’s children and her grandchildren were there and the speed with which they left again to go to eat the funeral tea Seth had paid for at the Burton Arms, made Emma realise that perhaps it had been a good thing that it had been her, and not them, who had been with Beattie in her last moments. Only Edward was mourning his mother’s loss. But for Emma, losing Beattie was like losing her parents and her brother, Johnnie, all over again.

Soon after the funeral, Edward went to live with one of his sisters so that once again Shingle Cottage was empty. It was days before Emma could bring herself to walk past it when she walked down the hill into town.

Christmas 1912 came and went and it was a subdued event in the Jago household. Oh, they put on a show of happiness with candles on a Christmas tree and lots of brightly wrapped parcels for Fleur, of course they did – how could they not?

But it wasn’t the Christmas Emma had been hoping to have, one in which her order book for bûche de Noël was overflowing, because she’d lost heart in making them.

‘It has to be my fault, Seth, don’t you see?’ Emma whispered in the darkness. ‘There’s something wrong with me, there must be.’

Something wrong with her? Did she never look in the mirror? She was perfect in his eyes. He had a portrait of her almost finished and he was going to give it to her for a Valentine’s gift. A surprise.

‘Wrong? Why?’

‘Because you’ve fathered a child so it can’t be you, can it? The number of times we’ve made love I should have become pregnant by now, but I haven’t. I saw Dr Shaw about this in October. And it’ll be February soon.’

‘You’ve had lots of stress, sweetheart,’ Seth said.

‘And I suppose the likes of the Phipps family, and the Evanses who seem to be popping out babies faster than rabbits breed, don’t have stresses?’ Emma had raised her voice, sounded irritated even, and Seth put a hand over her lips gently to quieten her. Best not to wake Fleur, she’d taken ages to get to sleep.

‘I’m sorry,’ Emma said. ‘I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s not your fault.’

‘Forgiven,’ Seth said.

He chose not to go through the whole ‘whose fault was it?’ thing again. Instead he kissed Emma behind her ear. It hadn’t taken him long to work out that Emma liked him to kiss her there almost more than she liked being kissed anywhere else. Always she groaned and turned into him.

She groaned now.

Another kiss.

Another low groan of desire from Emma.

She nibbled on his fingertips, ran her tongue on the insides of his palm. He was a lucky man, and he knew it, with a wife who so readily gave of herself. Even when she was tired and broken by other people’s demands, and events, she always gave herself to him freely.

Seth ran a hand, gently, up the outside of Emma’s left thigh, let it slide around to the inside. Emma curled into him and kissed the side of his neck.

‘We could try again?’ Seth said. ‘To make a baby, I mean. Now?’

‘When have I ever said no?’ Emma whispered, as she nibbled seductively on Seth’s ear lobe.

When? Emma said no all the time whenever Seth mentioned Canada and giving up his job with Olly. Olly hadn’t liked it much when he had declined to buy the business from him, but he’d understood. Canada would have to wait a little while longer now, for crossing the Atlantic at this time of year was a fool’s game.

‘Never,’ Seth lied, giving in to his physical desires.

But he wasn’t giving up. Emma would come around to his way of thinking sooner or later, he was sure of it. June. He’d set his sights on June for the crossing. Why, he might even go into Tapper’s Travel soon and request the cost.