Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox

now, when he belittled Emily’s role in the running of this small farm, she had to put him right. ‘My lass works hard and long on this place. She puts in as much time as anybody else and gets no thanks for it neither! As for me, I tend to the house and them as live in it, including yourself. On top of that, I do what I can when I’m needed outside. In fact, me and my lass are both capable of turning our hands to anything. And we do. Which is more than I can say for some.’

      His features hardened. ‘An’ what the devil is that supposed to mean?’

      ‘It means whatever you want it to mean.’ Pride and anger swelled her voice. ‘Since we lost her daddy, me and my lass have worked as a team. And I don’t mind saying … we’re a damned good team at that!’

      Laughing, he mimicked her words. ‘Yer didn’t “lose” her daddy. He just ran off, like the coward he was!’

      Returning his probing stare she observed the red leathery face and small, milky-grey eyes. Clem Jackson was a bully of the worst kind, as big and evil as the bulls he had thought to breed here on the farm. Though he was her own brother, Aggie had never really liked him. In fact, he had never been like a brother to her, and never would be.

      What was more, she wouldn’t want it. All she wanted was for him to be gone from this place and leave them in peace.

      ‘Michael Ramsden is no coward!’ she said hotly.

      ‘Well, o’ course you’d say that, but you’d be wrong, ’cause he’s a coward all right, he’s yeller through and through.’

      Drawing herself to her full height, Aggie momentarily lost her fear of him. ‘Mark my words, Clem Jackson, Michael will be back, and when he is, you’ll be gone from here like a cat with a scalded tail. What! You’ll be sent down the road so fast you won’t have time to look back!’

      Leaning forward she dared to taunt him. ‘I can tell you one thing an’ all,’ she said. ‘I for one won’t be sorry, and neither will the lass.’

      ‘You’d best watch yer tongue,’ he cautioned her, trembling with rage. ‘You know what happened the last time yer ’ad the gall to stand up to me!’

      She remembered all right, and her courage wavered. ‘I just want you to know that my man is no coward.’

      ‘Rubbish! What kinda husband and father runs off an’ leaves his family to the wolves?’

      ‘I already told you – he had a breakdown of sorts. We’d had a real hard winter.’ She remembered it only too well. ‘It came on suddenly and with such a fierceness there was little could be done in time. The sheep froze on the hillside before we could get them to shelter. And if that weren’t enough to contend with, the summer before had been a drought. We suffered our worst-ever crop when we could least afford it.’

      Clem burst out, ‘His old man had handed the farm to him on a plate – but that weren’t good enough, were it? Oh no. He were a farmer, for Gawd’s sake! He were allus carping on about what a hard life it were – so why didn’t he either learn to take it in his stride, or give it up altogether? I’ll tell yer why: it’s ’cause he were too much of a coward to leave, an’ too damned useless to stay.’

      ‘You know that’s not true.’ His sister’s anger faded beneath a measure of sadness. ‘Like his dad afore him, he gave his life to the land. It’s just that everything came at once … one bad thing after another. Like a nightmare, it was.’

      She swallowed the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘His poor mother was tekken by the consumption, and you know what happened after that.’ At the time it had seemed as though the nightmare would never end. ‘It were the last straw,’ she recalled. ‘It were that which pushed him over the edge.’

      Clem stared at her downturned face and sorry eyes, and said without pity, ‘Lost yer babby, too, didn’t yer, eh?’

      Seeing as how he was angling for a fight, his sister remained silent, but still he goaded her. ‘Two week early and not enough strength to kick itself out, eh? Well, if it were that much of a weakling – just like its father – happen it were best it didn’t survive. I mean, what use is a puny little thing like that? It would be no good at all on a farm, would it, eh? And when all’s said an’ done, the old woman were nowt but a nuisance. Huh! If yer ask me, yer were well shut o’ the pair of ’em!’

      When at his spiteful jibe she lifted her hand to strike him, he grabbed her fist, raised it high in the air and held it there, in an iron-tight grasp that had her wincing with pain.

      ‘You’re treading on dangerous ground, lady!’ His jowls trembled with rage. ‘I can see I’ll have to teach yer a lesson or two afore you know yer place in the scheme o’ things!’

      Suddenly, as was his unpredictable way, he was smiling again, his feigned sigh ending in a soft, cruel laugh. ‘Oh, I know all about that lad as yer lost … “born two week early an’ hardly drew a single breath”. I know it all, word for bloody word! Christ! I’ve been told about it so many times by that daft old bugger inside, it’s beginning to turn my guts over. I swear, if he tells me once more, I might wrap my hand round his scraggy old throat and squeeze the life out of him.’

      ‘You’ll not lay a hand on him!’ Now she would not be silenced. ‘Thomas Isaac is a sick old man. Touch him and you’ll have me to deal with!’

      Chuckling like a maniac, he entreated her, ‘Just listen to yersel’.’ He cackled. ‘By! You’ll ’ave me shivering in me shoes next.’ He touched her on the shoulder, not surprised when she shrank from him. ‘Oh, you’d rather be touched by that cowardly husband o’ yourn, is that it?’

      Without replying, she turned away, but he came after her, laughing and taunting, driving her crazy. ‘Oh, I forgot! You don’t like me calling him a coward, do yer, eh? But that’s what he is, all right. A shameful bloody coward! He cleared off an’ left yer to face it all on yer own. An’ yet you still have feelings for him. Mind, if I were you, I’d be praying he never again sets foot in Salmesbury again, never mind on this land. Or if he did, I’d be waiting for him with a loaded shotgun an’ no mistake.’

      She shook her head. ‘Well, thank God you’re not me. The truth is, I pray every night for Michael to come home, and when he does, I’ll be waiting for him with open arms.’

      ‘Then yer a bigger fool than I took yer for!’

      She merely shrugged her shoulders. ‘Like I said, it was one thing after another. When his mammy was took ill, he was already battling with debt. Then what with the babby an’ all … It was just too much. We’d waited all those years for a brother or sister for our Emily.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Michael fell to pieces – as any man might have done in the same circumstances.’

      ‘Not me!’ he said boastfully. ‘I’m not the kinda man to turn tail and run.’

      ‘That’s because life has never tried you hard enough.’

      This time he grabbed her by the hair, making her cry out. ‘What are you saying … bitch!’

      She looked at him with a measure of pity that turned his insides over. ‘Hurt me if you like, Clem, but I won’t have it that my Michael is a coward.’

      ‘Hmh! Then like I say, yer a bigger bloody fool than I took yer for.’ Thrusting her aside, he sneered: ‘All the same, it’s as well I were on hand to help you out with a bob or two, or you’d have lost this place – and serve yer bloody well right!’

      Having gone to him cap in hand was her greatest regret. ‘If I could turn back the clock, I would never have come to you,’ she informed him quietly.

      ‘Well, yer did. An’ it were me as paid off all the debts, an’ never you forget that.’ Spitting on the ground he reminded her, ‘With the old fella too useless to put one foot afore the other, an’ folks knocking at your door for their money or your blood, you were in a sorry mess. All