Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox

was too wide awake with troubled thoughts of John. In spite of him cruelly deserting her, she still loved and missed him.

      Skewing to the edge of the bed, she reached over to the bedside cabinet, taking John’s note from the drawer where she had kept it since that day when Lizzie brought it to her. She didn’t open it immediately. Instead she held it tight to her breast, eyes closed and her heart beating fifteen to the dozen.

      ‘Oh, John! How could you do it to us?’ she asked softly. ‘How could you forget everything we meant to each other?’ Even now she found it almost impossible to believe that after all their dreams and plans, he could simply walk away, into another woman’s arms.

      Hesitantly, she unfolded the letter and read it for the umpteenth time, her heart breaking all over again.

      After a while, she returned the letter to its place, put on her robe again and went softly down the stairs to the kitchen.

      Behind her, pausing in the doorway of her bedroom, Aggie watched her leave. Every night was the same; her daughter would pace the floor restlessly, wander round the house. ‘You’ve a lot to answer for, John Hanley!’ she hissed. ‘Leading her on, then dropping her wi’out the common decency to tell her to her face that you didn’t want her any more.’ Sending a letter was the coward’s way out.

      Suddenly the face of her own husband came into her mind. For a moment the tears swam in her sorry eyes, and then they were gone, blinked away in anger. He and John Hanley were a right pair o’ cowards!

      Yet, in the same way that Emily still loved John in spite of everything, she herself loved Michael.

      Not a day went by when she didn’t look over the hills, expecting to see his lean, homely figure heading for Potts End. The prospect had warmed her many a night, but there was no doubt in her heart that if he walked through that door, at any time, she would welcome him with open arms.

      For now though, Emily needed her.

      With that in mind, she followed in her daughter’s footsteps, down the stairs and into the kitchen.

      Unaware that her mother had entered the room, Emily was standing by the window, arms folded, her gaze reaching across to Clem Jackson’s crude habitat.

      ‘All right, are you, love?’ Aggie’s concerned voice gentled across the room.

      Startled, Emily swung round and for one revealing moment, her hatred of that man, the father of her own daughter, burned bright in her eyes.

      Aggie saw it, and not for the first time, she was afraid. There was a certain look in her daughter’s eyes that went far beyond pure hatred, and it frightened her.

      Quickly now, she crossed the room to see what it was that had disturbed Emily to such an extent. When she saw the light in Clem’s place, she grabbed the curtains and flung them together. Her brother had probably got one of his trollops in there. Lately, entertaining streetwomen was a regular thing.

      Aggie looked at Emily; at the raw emotion still etched into her face. ‘What is it, love? What’s wrong?’

      The girl grew nervous. ‘What do you mean?’ Just now when she’d been looking across at her uncle’s place, she was thinking about the day in the barn, when he had brutally possessed her. She hadn’t realised how, in that moment, the murderous intent she felt for him had been alive in her face.

      Aggie took her by the shoulders. ‘I know you hate him,’ she said softly. ‘We all do. Only, it seems something more with you.’ She had to ask. ‘Did he ever hurt you, child? Has he ever made improper suggestions to you?’

      Emily felt the blood rush to her face. ‘No!’ Shock and disbelief that her mother could ask such a thing made her lies all the more convincing to Aggie. ‘I blame him for coming between me and John. It was him who warned John off!’

      She wriggled out of her mother’s grip and went to stand with her back to the wall, her voice breaking with emotion as she said, ‘I’ll never forgive him. Yes, I hate him! I hate the way he rules this family like the bully he is. I hate how he carries on his filthy ways in front of us all … in front of little Cathleen! And the pity of it is that there isn’t a thing we can do to stop him.’

      ‘All right, lass, I understand.’ Aggie was more settled in her mind now about the suspicions she’d harboured. But she had little reason to be content. ‘Come and sit down. I’ll put the kettle on, and we can talk awhile. But then you’ve to go back to bed and try to get some sleep. We’ve a deal of work to do on the morrow, and we’ll neither of us be capable of anything, if we don’t take care of ourselves.’

      Good as her word, Aggie put the kettle on, made the tea and cut two small helpings of her best fruit-cake. ‘There y’are, lass.’ She set the tray between them. ‘Now then, what woke you out of your bed, eh?’

      Emily shook her head. ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered, taking up her tea and slowly sipping it.

      Aggie did the same. ‘One of your bad dreams, was it?’

      ‘I think it must have been.’

      ‘Dreaming about John Hanley, were you?’

      Emily smiled up at her. ‘I can’t forget him, Mam. I still can’t understand why he did what he did.’

      Aggie was straightforward as ever. ‘It’s like he said in his letter, lass. He just fell out of love with you and in love with someone else.’

      Emily still could not accept it. ‘I find it so hard to believe. We loved each other too much. I could never love anyone else the way I love John.’ Her gaze fell away. ‘How could he do it, Mam? How could he just turn his back on me, after what we meant to each other?’

      Aggie sighed. ‘I know it’s hard, lass, but it wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened and I’m sure it won’t be the last.’

      Emily paused before asking, ‘Is that what’s happened with Dad, d’you think?’ She didn’t want to hurt her mother by raising painful issues, but her father had been gone so long, it was like he was never coming home.

      Aggie was visibly surprised at her daughter’s pointed question. ‘I think he just gave way under the weight of debt and troubles,’ she answered simply.

      Emily valued her conversations with Aggie, and never more than now. ‘If it had been another woman, would you be badly hurt by it?’

      ‘Aye, lass, I would.’

      ‘Enough to shut him out of your life for ever?’

      ‘Aw, love.’ Aggie smiled knowingly. ‘I’m not saying you should shut John out of your life. What I’m saying is this: he was the one who did the shutting out. You mustn’t spend your life waiting for him to walk in the door. He might never come back, and one day it’ll be too late for you to start again. You’ve had no word from him in years.’

      Every minute of every day, Emily was looking for reasons as to why John had not come back to her. ‘One day he may realise that the other woman isn’t for him,’ she said hopefully.

      ‘If you’re waiting for that to happen, you’ll be wasting precious time.’ Like any mother, Aggie wanted happiness for her child. She needed to see her settled and content before the years caught up with her. ‘You’re still young,’ she said encouragingly. ‘You should be looking for a fresh start, with a new man. And what about Cathleen? She’s over four years old now. It won’t be long afore she starts at the village school. What will she think, when the other children start talking about their daddies? An’ how long will it be afore she starts asking questions about her daddy?’

      Emily, too, had been troubled about that very thing. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered truthfully.

      ‘Will you tell her how her daddy ran out on you, and that you’ve no idea where he is?’ Aggie asked innocently.

      ‘Right now, I’ve no idea what I might tell her.’ Emily had never argued with the rumours