The Emma Harte 7-Book Collection: A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, To Be the Best, Emma’s Secret, Unexpected Blessings, Just Rewards, Breaking the Rules

She eyed the sandwich warily, and noticing the expression on her face, Frank exclaimed defensively, ‘I didn’t lather it with dripping. I put it on and scraped it off, just like yer said, our Emma.’ There was a hidden smile on Emma’s face and her eyes crinkled with amusement as she poured herself a mug of tea and put the sandwich on the plate. She carried them both over to the fireplace and sat down opposite Frank. She munched on her sandwich abstractedly, still worrying about her mother.

Her little brother regarded her thoughtfully and with some curiosity, for he was extremely susceptible to Emma, whom he adored. He constantly sought her approbation, but in his anxiety to please he usually did something ridiculously foolish which irritated her and so incurred her disfavour. However, this was usually short-lived. There was not a little admiration in his pale eyes as he leaned forward and said confidingly, and with great solemnity, ‘I’m glad yer stopped ’em fighting. I’m scared when they shout. I am that, Emma.’

She looked at him absently, lost in her thoughts, as she put the plate down on the hearth. ‘I knows. But it’s always over nowt, lad.’

‘Well, it still scares me,’ he went on quickly, ‘that’s why I was lathering the dripping on too thick afore, yer knows. I was nervous,’ he finished, trying to completely exonerate himself with her.

Emma laughed. ‘Oooh! What a whopper that is, our Frankie!’ she chided.

The boy bristled. His thin body tensed and his mild eyes were suddenly fierce as he cried with unaccustomed passion, ‘Me mam says yer not ter call me Frankie, our Emma!’

Emma saw how serious he was and said with a smile, ‘Sorry, luv. Yer right, our mam does hate nicknames.’

Frank straightened himself in the chair, assuming a dignified and important air. ‘Me mam says I’m a great lad and Frankie is a baby name!’ he exclaimed in his squeaky boy’s voice, which nonetheless was surprisingly firm.

‘That’s true, yer are,’ Emma replied, giving him a loving smile. ‘Well, we’d best get ready.’ She took the dishes they had been using to the sink, washed and dried them quickly, and then returned to the fireplace. Emma picked up her boots from the hearth, where her father had placed them to warm, and pulled them on decisively. As she was lacing up her boots, Emma stole a glance at Frank and thought impatiently: There he is, daydreaming again. A lot of good his dreams will do him! She rarely had time to indulge herself in fantasies, but when she did they were unromantically solid and practical. Her dreams were of warm coats for them all. Lots of beautiful black coal in the cellar. A larder stuffed to overflowing with smoked hams and wheels of cheese, hunks of beef, and row upon row of bottled fruits and vegetables, just like the pantry at the Hall. And gold sovereigns jingling in her purse, enough to buy all these necessities and luxuries for her mother and new boots for her father. She sighed. Frank dreamed of books and visiting London and riding in fine cabs and going to the theatre, dreams that were fed by the illustrated magazines she sometimes brought home from the Hall. And Winston dreamed of joining the navy and sailing around the world and having an adventurous life in exotic places. Frank and Winston dreamed of pleasure and glory. Emma, when she had the time to dream, dreamed of survival.

She sighed again. She would willingly settle for a few extra shillings a week to help them along, never mind gold sovereigns. She stood up purposefully and went and put on her coat, calling to Frank, ‘Don’t sit there gawping like a sucking duck, lad. Get yer coat on. It’s twenty ter six and I’ll be late if I don’t hurry now.’

She handed Frank his coat and scarf, which he tied around his neck. Emma, clucking and shaking her head, immediately untied the scarf and wrapped it around his small fair head, fastening it tightly under his chin. She picked up his flat cap and slapped it firmly on top of the scarf, ignoring his wriggling and his protestations.

‘Oh, Emma, I don’t like me scarf this way,’ he cried defiantly. ‘The other lads laugh at me and say I’m a sissy.’

‘It won’t keep yer ears warm around yer neck and I’ve told yer afore, Frank, don’t pay no heed to what folks say. Now come on and look sharp about it.’

She tied on her own scarf, handed Frank his jock box, glanced around the room once more, and then blew out the candle. Gripping Frank’s hand tightly in hers, she pulled him out of the cottage.

They emerged into a black dawn and the cold hit them in an icy blast, moisture-laden and full of frost. The two children hurried down the flagged path, past the shrivelled and frozen elder and lilac bushes in the meagre little garden, its bleak inhospitable soil as hard and unrelenting as iron. The only sound was the whining of the wind and the sharp slap of their boots against the cold stones as they made their way down Top Fold. This small cul-de-sac of cottages where they lived was set high up in Fairley village. Behind it was the higher background of the sweeping moors and it was an isolated spot, desolate and uninviting, and only the pale lights that gleamed in some of the cottage windows gave credence to the idea that it was inhabited. When they finally reached the top of the street, Frank lifted his cold little face to Emma and said, ‘Shall I stop at me Aunt Lily’s then?’

‘Yes, luv. And tell her ter go ter see me mam early this morning. Tell her she’s been rambling a bit but was resting quiet when we left. And don’t stop chattering ter me Aunt Lily for long. Yer knows the gaffer closes the mill gates at six o’clock sharp. If yer gets locked out yer’ll have ter wait ’til eight o’clock and they’ll dock yer wages. And be a good lad!’ She kissed his face and pulled his cap down more tightly on his head.

‘Will yer wait and watch me till I gets to Aunt Lily’s?’ Frank asked, trying hard not to show that he was frightened at this hour. Emma nodded. ‘Yes, luv. Go on then.’

Frank ran off into the mist, occasionally sliding on the cobblestones, which were slippery and glazed over with hoary frost. She watched his little figure streaking down the street until he was just a faint outline in the murky light. But she could hear his boots hitting the cobbles and when they stopped she knew he had reached their aunt’s house, a small cottage on this main street that slanted down to the village and the river Aire. His loud banging on the door with his tin jock box reassured her that he had indeed reached his destination. He’ll waken the dead as well as me Aunt Lily, she thought wryly, and then she wished she had not thought of the dead Emma shivered as she turned in the opposite direction and headed towards the moors.

She was a solitary yet gallant figure, in her long black skirt and shabby coat, which was far too small, as she trudged doggedly and bravely on towards Fairley Hall, her eyes occasionally lifting to scan the leaden sky and the bleak dark moors that stretched in an unending line before her.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_3ba904fa-3a12-57e7-b8c3-bf085d33b0e6)

The hills that rise up in an undulating sweep to dominate Fairley village and the stretch of the Aire Valley below it are always dark and brooding in the most clement of weather. But when the winter sets in for its long and deadly siege the landscape is brushstroked in grisaille beneath ashen clouds and the moors take on a savage desolateness, the stark fells and bare hillsides drained of all colour and bereft of life. The rain and snow drive down endlessly and the wind that blows in from the North Sea is fierce and raw. These gritstone hills, infinitely more sombre than the green moors of the nearby limestone dale country, sweep through vast silences broken only by the mournful wailing of the wind, for even the numerous little becks, those tumbling, dappled streams that relieve the monotony in spring and summer, are frozen and stilled.

This great plateau of moorland stretches across countless untenanted miles towards Shipley and the vigorous industrial city of Leeds beyond. It is amazingly featureless, except for occasional soaring crags, a few blackened trees, shrivelled thorns, and abandoned ruined cottages that barely punctuate its cold and empty spaces. Perpetual mists, pervasive and thick, float over the rugged landscape, obscuring the highest peaks and demolishing the foothills, so that land and sky merge in an endless mass of grey that is dank and enveloping, and everything is diffused, without motion, wrapped in unearthly solitude. There is little evidence here of humanity, little to invite man into this inhospitable land at this time of year, and few venture out into its stark and lonely reaches.

But it was towards this harsh moorland that Emma so stoically marched on this icy February morning in 1904. The narrow winding road that snaked its way across the hills was the quickest route to Fairley Hall and Emma had to brave the moors in all seasons of the year and at all hours.

She shivered as she hurried along, and huddled further into her coat, which was a castoff from the Hall and offered as much protection as paper, threadbare and patched as it was. It had already been a sorry, worn-out bit of clothing when Cook had given it to her in the summer, but Emma had received it gratefully and she had patiently darned the holes and lengthened the hem and sewn on new buttons. She had outgrown it all too quickly, and it stretched across her back tightly. The sleeves were too short and her thin arms poked out pathetically in scarecrow fashion, exposing childish wrists to the elements. The wind bit treacherously through the meagre coat and the damp air drenched her, penetrating into her bones, so that her legs felt numbed and without life. She pulled her scarf more securely around her head and then thrust her chapped hands back into her pockets quickly. Her teeth chattered and her eyes watered from the icy blasts and she fervently wished she was already at the Hall, as much as she disliked that place.

By the time Emma reached the stone-walled field that led out to the moors she was breathless. She rested against the stile for a moment, her breathing still laboured, her heart thundering in her chest. She looked down the steep road she had just traversed. Below her the fog was patchy, clearing in parts, and in the distance she could see the twinkling lights now burning brightly in all the cottages, as the village awakened. Beyond, in the valley, there was a faint dim glow that told her that the Fairley mill was preparing for its daily business. Soon the shrill mill whistle would start to hoot, breaking the silence with its strident tones, announcing the opening of the gates. In a short time, the men and women of Fairley would be hurrying down to clock in and start another day of drudgery, combing the raw wool, spinning the fine woollens and worsted cloths that were shipped all over the world.

Emma looked lingeringly at the village where her mother lay, and which was also the last sign of life until she reached the Hall, and then she turned abruptly. She had rested long enough and now she must hurry if she was to reach the Hall by six o’clock, which was when Cook expected her. Emma hitched up her skirts, climbed over the stile, and jumped down into the field with agility. The ground under her feet was unyielding with frost and the mist floated and rolled in front of her, obliterating the dead gorse bushes and the few paltry, frost-bitten trees as it drifted over the landscape. Now and then banks of snow became visible, the fantastic glistening shapes illusory in the vaporous air, and to Emma there was something fearful, almost menacing about the moors at this hour. She shuddered but she pressed on bravely. She could hardly see the path, but she had been working at the Hall for two years now, and she knew it well, and her feet followed it with a degree of sureness. The crunching of her footsteps on the frosty earth was the only sound in the early-morning air.

Her thoughts turned to her father as she tramped along. Emma loved her father and understood the nature of him, but he had disturbed her not a little in the last few months. Her dad just wasn’t the same since he had returned from the Boer War. It seemed to Emma that all the spirit had ebbed out of him, and he was given to quiet withdrawn moods, yet conversely, he would often erupt into sudden almost uncontrollable anger, when Winston, or anyone other than herself or her mother, exasperated him.

These inconsistencies in her father’s behaviour and his wildly contrasting moods baffled Emma, and when he stared at her vacantly he seemed like a lost child. Sometimes she wanted to grab hold of him and shake him vigorously, in an effort to rouse him to renewed life. She was too small and fragile for that, so instead she would attempt to shake him out of his dejection with her questions, badgering him about money, reminding him of her mother’s sickness. His face always remained immobile and closed, but his eyes filled with pain. It was Elizabeth’s sickness and his sorrow for his wife that had changed Jack Harte and petrified his spirit, and rendered him virtually useless; it was not the war which had wrought the drastic upheaval in his nature.

But Emma, in her youthful naïveté, did not fully comprehend this. Passionately devoted to one singular pursuit, that of changing the constrained circumstances in which they lived, she was solely concerned with their survival, and this blinded her to anything else. All she knew was that her dad had no answers for her, no solutions to their problems. In an effort to placate her he would resort to the same old phrase he employed so often lately. ‘Things’ll get better soon, luv,’ he would say. Her brother Winston was always duped by this confident and optimistic mood of their father’s and his eyes would instantly shine with anticipation of better days. He would ask excitedly, ‘When, Dad? When?’ Emma’s pragmatic brain would scream, ‘How, Dad? How?’ although she never uttered a word. She was afraid to throw out this challenge when her father was attempting to reassure Winston and she also knew, unquestioningly and from past experience, that there would be no genuine response and that no practical ideas would be proffered. Emma, realist that she was, had acknowledged this inevitability months ago and she had come to accept it with resignation, since she did not know how to combat her father’s inertia and impotence, his procrastination and his lack of enterprise.

‘Nowt ever happens ter change our lot because me dad never does owt ter change it!’ Emma said aloud and with vehemence, as she scrambled over the low wall and out on to the moorland path beyond the field. Emma had not yet come to understand that when hope is taken away from a man he is left with nothing, sometimes not even the will to live. And all the hope had been kicked out of Jack Harte long ago.

She blew on her frozen hands and then pushed them back into her pockets, as she began her ascent up the lower slope that would lead her to Ramsden Ghyll and then on upwards, to the top of the moors and the road to Fairley Hall. Emma had not mentioned money to her father lately, but it never left her thoughts. They must have more money if they were to survive, if her mother was to regain her strength and her health. Emma knew that without money you were nothing, just a powerless and oppressed victim of the ruling class, a yoked and shackled beast of burden destined to a life of mindless drudgery, and an existence so wretched and so without hope, so filled with terror and despair that it was hardly worth the contemplation let alone the living. Without money you were susceptible to all the capricious whims and moods and fancies of the careless, thoughtless rich, to all the vicissitudes of life. Without money you were vulnerable to the world.

Since she had worked at Fairley Hall, Emma had come to understand many things. Blessed with acute observation, she was also innately shrewd and amazingly perceptive for her years. She had quickly seen and noted the outrageous and monstrous discrepancies between life at Fairley Hall and life in the village. The Fairleys lived in luxury, even splendour, pampered and totally isolated from the harsh realities of the lives of the workers, whose pitiless and endless toil financed their velvet-lined world of ease and privilege.

Observing the Fairleys and the way they lived, Emma had begun to comprehend that money did not only buy necessities, but so much else as well. She had come to realize that the possessor of money also possessed power, a most desirable asset to Emma, because she knew now that power made you invulnerable. It made you safe. By the same token, Emma had come to bitterly accept the fact that there was no justice or liberty for the poor. But she suspected, with the beginning of cynicism, that you could buy both quite easily. Just as easily as you could buy the medicines and nourishing food they needed for her mother, providing you had the right amount of shillings to place on the counter. Yes, she thought, money is the answer to everything.

There must be a way for me to earn more money, she decided as she made her way up the path. There were poor people and there were rich people in the world, and if some people could be rich then obviously so could others, she reasoned. Her father always said it was a question of birth and of luck. Emma was scornful of these ready answers, for she doubted their veracity, and so she refused to accept them. If a person came up with a brilliant plan and worked hard, harder than anyone else, then surely that person could earn money. Lots of it. A fortune perhaps. Emma had kept her eye on this goal for some time, never wavering, never truly discouraged, for what she lacked in experience of life she made up for with traits perhaps of greater value – intuition, imagination, and ambition. Instinctively Emma understood many things, and one of these was the cold hard fact that money was not necessarily always inherited or acquired by chance. She knew, in spite of what her father said, that there were other ways to amass a fortune. She sighed. It seemed to Emma, as she hurried along, chilled to the bone and full of despair about her mother, that she was all alone and friendless, battling the world without a helping hand or an encouraging word from anyone. But she had determined months ago that she would not let this defeat her. She would find a way to make money, lots of it, for only then would they be safe.

Her feet followed the narrow path and in spite of the denseness of the fog, she knew she was reaching the top of the lower slope, for she was panting and her legs were aching from climbing. She shivered under the rising wind that whistled down from the high fells, and pulled up the collar of her coat. Her hands were frozen stiff, but her feet were warm. Her father had repaired her boots just the week before, buying strong leather from the tannery and thick felt for the inner soles. She had stood by him and watched as he had cut the soles and hammered them firmly on to the worn uppers, cobbling the boots on the old iron last in the kitchen. She thought, too, of the steaming hot broth Cook would have waiting for her, and the warmth of the huge kitchen at the Hall, and these incentives made her hurry.

A few skeletal trees loomed up in front of her in the relentless environment, stark and spectral against the glassy green sky. Her heart began to pound rapidly, partially from exertion, but also from dread, for beyond these lone trees the path plummeted down into Ramsden Ghyll, a dell between the hills. The Ghyll was the spot Emma hated most on her journey to the Hall, for it was an eerie place, filled with grotesque rock formations and blasted tree stumps. The mist, trapped as it was between the twin peaks that soared above the dell, gathered and coagulated into heavy grey darkness that was almost impassable.

Emma was nervous of this place, but nonetheless she hurried on, chiding herself for her nervousness as she plunged down the path into the Ghyll. She was afraid of the beasties and the goblins and the spectres of the moor which seemed to float vapour-like, yet so threateningly, amongst these great rocks formed of millstone grit. She was afraid, too, of the lost souls the villagers superstitiously said haunted the Ghyll. To block out the images of goblins and monsters and lost souls, she began to sing in her head. She never sang aloud at this hour on the moors, for fear of waking the dead. She did not know many songs, except for the few they had all learned at school, and she found these insipid and childish. So instead she sang ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’, forming the words silently and marching bravely along to the rhythmic beat that ran through her head.

She was halfway across the Ghyll when the words were suddenly swept away. Emma stopped tramping and stood perfectly still. She was transfixed, listening acutely. Just below the level of the wind she heard it, a low lumbering sound as if something huge and powerful, and propelled by immense force, was coming down the path from the other side of the Ghyll. She shrank back against a formation of rocks and held her breath, fear trickling through her like icy water. And then he was standing there before her, not an inchoate monster like a rock or a tree, but a wholly formed monster, a man, who was enormously tall and who peered down to stare at her through the swirling fog.

Emma sucked in her breath and clenched her fists in her pockets. She wondered frantically whether she should dart out in front of him and run back along the path, but she was so paralysed with terror she could not move. And then the monster spoke and terrified her even more.

‘Faith and if it’s not me good fortune, to be sure, to be meeting a spry young colleen on these blasted moors at this ungodly hour. ’Tis the Divil’s own place, I am thinking, and no fit land to be a-wandering in, on this cold morning.’

Emma was speechless. She looked up at the man who towered above her, but she was unable to distinguish his features in the murky light. She pressed herself closer into a crevice between the rocks, wishing she could dissolve into it, her eyes starting out of her head in alarm.

The man spoke again, his voice ghostly and disembodied coming to her through the mist. ‘Ah, and ’tis afeared the little colleen is, and no wonder, a startling ye like I did. But it’s only a stupid man that I am to be sure, that has lost himself in this blasted fog on his way to Fairley Hall. Can ye be pointing me in the right direction and I’ll be on me way?’

Her heart beat less frenziedly, but Emma was still trembling and afraid, for a stranger on these moors – and he was indeed a stranger – could be just as dangerous as any monster. Her father had warned her never to talk to anyone she did not know, who was not from the valley, and who was therefore a ‘foreigner’ in the parts, and suspect. She flattened herself against the rocks, wishing he would go away, pressing her lips firmly together. Perhaps if she did not respond to his questions he would disappear as suddenly as he had appeared.

‘Faith and I am thinking that the cat’s got her tongue. Sure and that’s it,’ the man continued, as if addressing a third person. Emma bit her lip and looked about her anxiously. There seemed to be no one else there, although it was hard to tell in the greying light.

‘I won’t be harming ye, little colleen,’ the strange voice went on. ‘Just show me the way to Fairley Hall and I’ll be on me way, to be sure I will.’

Emma still could not see the man’s face, for it was lost in the mist that engulfed them both. She looked down. She could make out his great feet encased in hobnail boots and the bottoms of his trousers. He had not moved a fraction from the spot where he had first stopped, but had remained stationary, as if he sensed that any sudden movement on his part would send her scurrying out of her hiding place, such as it was, and off into the fog in terror.

He cleared his throat and said again, more softly, ‘I won’t be a-harming ye, little one. Don’t be afeared of me.’

There was something in the tone of his voice that made Emma relax her taut muscles. Slowly the quivering in her limbs began to subside. He had a strange voice, but it was lovely, musical and lilting, and different from any voice she had ever heard before. And then Emma, listening acutely, and with all of her senses alerted in anticipation of trouble, realized how gentle his voice was, recognized with a sudden rush of clarity that it was filled with kindness and warmth. Still, he was a stranger. Then much to her horror and with some surprise, Emma found herself asking involuntarily, ‘Why do yer want ter go ter the Hall then?’ She was so angry with herself she could have bitten her tongue off.

‘I be going there to repair the chimneys and the flues. It was himself who came to see me last week. Squire Fairley. Yes, indeed, himself came to visit me in Leeds and was kind enough and generous, too, he was, I might be adding, to be offering me the job.’

Emma eyed the man suspiciously, lifting her damp face to peer at him through the mist. He was the tallest man she had ever seen and he was roughly dressed in workman’s clothes and he had a sack slung over his shoulder.