Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox

own husband. Danny and John would each go on believing that the other was her father.

      Michael nodded. ‘I suspected there might be a woman somewhere,’ he admitted, ‘from the way John spoke sometimes. But I never dreamed it was our Emily.’

      ‘It’s all right, Dad.’ Emily had returned. ‘I’m married to Danny now. He’s part of our family and I love him. All that with John – it happened years ago and it’s all water under the bridge.’ So why did her heart dance at the thought of seeing him again?

      Michael had seen the look on her face and was unconvinced.

      ‘It will be good to meet up with John again.’ Emily put on a bright but shaky smile as she passed him. ‘We owe him a lot. Right – I’d best go and make sure Danny’s not overdoing it.’

      With Emily gone, Michael asked his wife, ‘So was it really serious between them? I mean, had it gone as far as them planning to be wed and all that?’

      ‘It were just young love,’ Aggie answered lightly.

      ‘I see. But it fizzled out – is that what you’re saying? After she met Danny, and had his child, John was left out in the cold?’ After his own behaviour, Michael had never felt able to ask his son-in-law why he had waited so long before making an honest woman of their Emily. They were married now, and that was all that mattered. He himself was looking forward to seeing John and young Rosie again. They had been the saving of him.

      As she walked about, seeing to the guests and making sure the wine and food kept flowing, Emily was as nervous as a kitten. When John walked through that door, how was she going to feel? How could she look at him and not show her true emotion?

      During the course of the afternoon, Aggie managed to take Grandad aside. ‘Sit here with me awhile,’ she invited. ‘You look like I feel – worn out.’

      ‘I am,’ he confessed. ‘I’m an old dog trying new tricks, and I should have known better.’ He had been dancing with the farmer’s wife and now he could hardly walk. ‘Me back hurts, me arms ache and I need the lavvy.’

      ‘You’d best go down the garden then.’ The Ramsdens had an outside water-closet, like everyone else in Salmesbury, and made do with chamber-pots at night. Thomas Isaac had his very own armchair commode – the subject of many jokes, but an absolute godsend.

      ‘Not yet,’ he answered in a whisper, his gaze going to the farmer’s buxom wife. ‘If I so much as move, she’ll be on me like a ferret after a bunny rabbit.’

      Aggie hid a smile. ‘What – you mean she’s been making up to you, is that it?’

      ‘Aye, summat like that.’ When he saw the red-cheeked buxom wench eyeing him again, he confided from out of the corner of his mouth, ‘She med a point o’ telling me how the old man doesn’t keep her satisfied … if yer know what I mean? What’s more, she calls me “Tommy-Izzie” an’ it’s drivin’ me potty.’

      Aggie couldn’t hide her smile any longer, especially when at that moment she got a dark glare from the woman herself. ‘By! She’s a big ’un, isn’t she? I reckon she’d be too much of a handful for you, Dad,’ she said and, made merry from the elderberry wine, they broke into fits of laughter, which had the woman turning away in disgust and everyone else smiling, though they didn’t know the reason for it.

      ‘I’d best hobble down t’path now,’ the old man tee-heed. ‘It wouldn’t do to wet me pants in front of all and sundry,’ he cast a wary glance at the farmer’s wife, ‘especially not in front of her.’ Hoisting himself upright, he leaned on the wall for support. ‘She thinks I’m a virile, active fella, so she does.’

      ‘You’d best behave yourself,’ Aggie cautioned. ‘You’re not as young as you were.’

      ‘No, and I’m not so agile neither,’ he said, falling against the wall. ‘Me old pins don’t seem to carry me where I want to go.’

      ‘D’you want me to take you to the lavvy?’

      ‘What!’ Horrified at such a prospect, he straightened his shoulders and looked her in the eye. ‘I keep tellin’ yer, woman, I may be a bit wobbly on me pins, but I’m not a flippin’ babby!’

      When Aggie looked at the woman and caught her winking at Grandad, she chuckled under her breath. ‘I don’t know how you’ve done it, lass,’ she muttered, ‘but you seem to have tekken years off our Dad. By! I’ve not seen him so frisky in an age.’

      She told him the same the minute he ambled back. ‘Whatever you say about her, yon farmer’s wife seems to have given you a new lease o’ life,’ she joshed. ‘You’re very full of yerself, all of a sudden.’

      Making much of it with his groaning and grunting, he sat himself down. ‘Aye well, yer know I have good days and bad days. Today seems to be one o’ the good ’uns.’

      ‘Sez you!’ Slipping off her shoes with a sigh of relief, Aggie gave him a wink. ‘I reckon there’s life in the old dog yet.’

      He actually blushed. ‘Gerraway with yer, woman!’

      Later, when the joshing was over, they sat talking about this and that. ‘Look at our Emily,’ he said. ‘Do yer think she’ll be happy enough with Danny?’

      ‘I hope so.’ Since Danny’s father had taken up his turn on the accordion, Aggie had seen Emily chatting non-stop with her husband. Worried as she was, it did her heart good to see them together like that.

      ‘Danny’s a good husband,’ Grandad interrupted her thoughts. ‘An’ he’s a wonderful daddy to the lass.’

      ‘D’you want another drink?’ Aggie asked. ‘Or will it be safe?’

      ‘Whatever d’yer mean?’

      Aggie chuckled. ‘I mean, will it send you wild after the farmer’s wife?’

      He laughed at that. ‘Yer a tormenting bugger, so you are. And yes, I’d like a drink. A cuppa tea would go down nicely, lass, thank you.’

      Aggie went off to the kitchen.

      On her return with two cups of freshly brewed tea, she spoke to Thomas in a serious manner. ‘You must never talk about what you overheard,’ she said solemnly. ‘About what that fiendish devil did to me all them years ago, and then to our Emily – his own niece, God bless her! If it ever got out that Clem Jackson was Cathleen’s father, I don’t dare think what it would do to the family. Cathleen herself would be so upset!’ She rubbed her hands over her eyes as if to shut it out. ‘It would be a terrible thing if it ever became common knowledge. Even our Michael doesn’t know. I just can’t bring meself to tell him. God knows what it would do to him, Dad.’ Her eyes were full of tears.

      ‘Don’t you worry, lass,’ he told her firmly. ‘My lips are forever sealed.’

      And thankfully, Aggie knew she could trust him above all others.

      It was getting late. ‘I’m feeling the weight of the day on me shoulders,’ he said. ‘I’ll not be long afore I go to my bed.’

      Aggie was tired as well, but she was more than content to sit there, watching the folks dancing and enjoying the food she and Emily had put out. Now, as Emily smiled at her from beside Danny, she nodded back.

      When she turned to look at her father-in-law, she realised he’d been kidnapped by one old dear, who was leading him onto the floor. ‘Ah! Look at ’em, bless their old hearts!’ she chuckled at the sight. ‘Where there’s a will there’s a way.’

      Beginning to feel lonely, she was delighted when Michael came in from the cold and asked her to, ‘Give us a twirl on the carpet, lass.’ In a minute she had been whisked away, and the two of them were soon dancing to the jolly music of the accordion.

      Soon the party got its second breath and was in full swing, though Grandad and his new friend had fallen by the wayside