Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox

him.’

      ‘And you’ve told him that, have you?’

      ‘Time and again. He knows how I feel, but he still wants to wed me.’

      ‘For the child’s sake if not your own, why don’t you just say yes?’

      ‘Is that what you want, Mam?’

      ‘Oh, lass! It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s your life and as far as I can see, you’ve got two choices.’

      Emily gave a sorry little smile. She knew the choices only too well, for hadn’t she agonised these past years, and didn’t she always come up with the same empty hope; that there was still time for John to realise he’d made a mistake and come home. The trouble was, time had run out so quickly, and with every day that passed, she dreaded the questions Cathleen was soon bound to ask.

      Aggie went on, ‘You can wait for John, and drive Danny away, so then you’ll be on your own. The years will pass and you’ll get lonelier and lonelier, and you might still not see hide nor hair of John Hanley. You’ll have denied Cathleen the opportunity of having a father, and mebbe brothers and sisters, and as for yourself – well, it’ll be awful hard, lass, because you’ll need to be both parents at once. There’ll be no companion, and no man there for you, not if you keep saving yourself for something that may never happen.’

      Emily stopped her. ‘I know all this, Mam,’ she told her. ‘I’ve thought of nothing else.’

      Aggie persisted. ‘The second choice and by my reckoning far the best option, is to accept Danny’s offer of marriage. Think of it, lass. You’ll have a home, and a husband who’ll cherish you.’

      She then gave Emily a deliberate shock. ‘There’s summat else you need to think of, lass, and it’s this.’ Holding Emily’s questioning gaze, she informed her quietly, ‘There will come a time when me and your grandad are no longer here for you, lass.’

      Emily’s heart turned over. She had never envisaged a life without her mother and it shook her to the core. ‘Please, Mam. Don’t talk like that.’

      Aggie continued regardless. ‘I’m only saying what’s true. Hard though it may be, these things need to be considered. Besides, you owe it to yourself and the child to marry a good man, to make a home that will last. Be grateful and content that somebody loves you enough to keep pestering you, even though time and again you tell him no. There’s a good chance that if you keep turning him away, he might just meet a young woman who values him enough to say yes – and then where will you be, eh? I’ll tell yer.’

      She was in full swing now. ‘You’ll be all on yer own, with a child to raise, with all the worries and decisions that go with it, and you won’t be able to sit down of an evening and talk it over with your husband because there’ll only be you. Is that what you really want, lass, and all because you can’t put John out of your mind – a man who cared so little for you, he went away and set up with some other woman?’

      In her heart of hearts, Emily knew that everything her mother said was true. She had known it all along, yet had pushed it from her mind. Instead of listening to her head she had been listening to her heart.

      Now though, in the wake of her mother’s outburst, she was forced to ask herself some harsh questions. Was she being selfish? Should she forget about John and settle for Danny? As a mother, shouldn’t she be putting Cathleen first? But no less important: could she bear to live with a man who she couldn’t really love? When he put his arms round her in bed of a night, how would she feel?

      She considered all these things, and what came out as being most important was the child. After all, just like her mam said, Cathleen needed a father, and she already loved Danny in that way. But wasn’t it ironic, that the same man who to her mind had driven John away and defiled her that day in the barn, was now ruling her life as never before, through that same innocent child?

      On top of all that, Emily now forced herself to consider what John had done to her. How could he ever have really loved her, to do a thing like that?

      ‘You keep thinking on it, lass.’ Aggie saw how deep in thought her daughter was, and it gave her little pleasure to have pointed out what was necessary. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been brutal in what I said, but I only want you to do what’s right, for both you and the child.’

      Having said her piece, Aggie busied herself, making the old man a brew. She then wiped down the pot-sink and put away the crockery. ‘You’d best go up and see Grandad now,’ she suggested. ‘Like as not he’ll be waiting for this.’

      She gave the filled cup with saucer to Emily, together with a fond word or two. ‘Look, lass, I don’t hate John for what he did, though I wish it hadn’t happened. But it did. And it seems to me, whatever dreams you and he had together are over now. He’s carved out a life for himself, and to my mind, you need to do the same.’

      ‘I’m not ready yet, Mam.’ She sighed from deep down. ‘Maybe I never will be.’

      ‘Time will tell.’ Aggie’s heart dipped. She knew how turning your back on the man you cherished was not an easy thing for any woman. ‘You know I love you, don’t you, lass?’

      Emily nodded. That much she had never doubted.

      Aggie gave her a gentle nudge. ‘Go on then. Take that up to Grandad.’

      Upstairs, while Cathleen played at the window with her rag-doll, the old man and Danny were catching up on events. ‘He strides round this place as if he owns it!’ The old man had fire in his eyes. ‘By! If I were a younger, fitter man, I’d have him down yon lane so fast his feet wouldn’t touch the ground!’

      ‘Don’t get yourself worked up, old-timer.’ Danny knew how frustrated the old man was, and how desperately he wanted rid of Clem Jackson – as they all did.

      ‘’Course I’m worked up!’ Keeping his voice low so the child couldn’t hear, the old fella hitched himself up in the bed. ‘He’s a thorn in my side, that’s what he is.’ Leaning closer, he imparted intimately, ‘There’s summat bad happening in this house. I don’t know what it is, but I can sense it.’

      Startled by the old man’s comment, Danny asked worriedly, ‘Whatever d’you mean by that?’

      Lying back on his pillow the old man sniffed and coughed and for a while he tried hard to think what it might be that played so heavy on his mind. ‘I don’t know exactly what it is,’ he said finally. ‘All I know is there’s summat secretive goin’ on. I can feel it in me bones.’ He looked at Danny. ‘Did you know he’s fetching women of a certain sort back to the farm? I’ve seen the randy buggers from me window, an’ it don’t need no brains to guess what they’re here for.’

      Danny had suspected as much. ‘What do Aggie and Emily have to say about it?’

      ‘They haven’t said owt, and they wouldn’t.’ He grinned from ear to ear. ‘I know more than they think.’

      Though he was not one for gossip, Danny was intrigued. ‘In what way?’

      Implying a secret, the old man tapped his nose. ‘Folks often talk to theirselves,’ he said. ‘Sometimes in their sleep and sometimes when they’re on their own and think nobody’s listening. If there’s bad things playing on their minds, they say ’em out loud. I know, ’cause I’ve ’eard it all with me own ears.’ His bushy eyebrows merged in a frown. ‘Secrets! Things like that!’

      Hearing a door close somewhere downstairs, he dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘I know about things that went on a long time ago. I’ve never said, and I never will. But I don’t like it. One o’ these days, I intend doing summat about it an’ all!’

      Growing anxious, he began struggling to sit up, angered when he fell back against the pillow. ‘Damn it! I’m useless. Bloody useless!’

      Danny helped him. ‘You’re getting too excited,’ he told him. ‘Lie still and stop your worrying.’ He