The Jeweller's Niece

by Alexandra Connor

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

To save her father, one young woman takes justice into her own hands...

The Jeweller's Niece is a thrilling saga from Alexandra Connor that follows a young woman as she uncovers shocking truths to clear her father's name. Perfect for fans of Josephine Cox and Catherine Cookson.

Emma Coles' life is shattered when her widowed father, Frederick, is imprisoned for theft. She never believes that he is guilty - but her intimidating uncle, David Hawksworth, thinks otherwise. Reluctantly giving Emma a home over his jewellery shop, he forbids all contact with the convicted man. But Emma secretly visits her father in prison.

Emma's relationship with friend Ricky, who works at the prison, deepens and for a while it seems that the future might not be as difficult as she feared. Then tragedy strikes. Caught in a welter of family politics and feuds, Emma remains determined to prove her father's innocence. Yet when the identity of the real culprit is uncovered, the revelations are shattering. Only by facing the truth about the past can Emma find happiness - and see justice finally done.

What readers are saying about The Jeweller's Niece:

'An excellent read'

'An unexpected and thoroughly satisfying ending'

'Five stars'

Release date: February 18, 2010

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 448

Sample

‘He’s not that bad. He had a son of his own, after all,’ Mr Palmer replied, taking the knife out of his wife’s hand and clicking it closed. Florence was a loving partner, but - when provoked - she had a temper. Indeed, before he married her, there had been some talk of her breaking the nose of her intended. Not that he remained intended after that. ‘I can’t imagine it can be easy for him.’

‘Easy for him!’ Florence snapped back. ‘Who cares about him, the miserable old sod? It’s his niece I worry about. Pretty girl too, and quiet, so quiet. Not that she’d be encouraged to be anything else in that place.’ She paused, regarding her husband thoughtfully. Harold wasn’t much to look at, but their sex life was lively. ‘I thought she could come over to the shop. You know, get out of that place more.’

‘Best not to get on the wrong side of David Hawksworth. We’ve rubbed along nicely enough for years. He’s not the sort of man to take kindly to someone poking their nose into his business,’ Harold replied, turning to the evening papers and setting them out.

Suddenly he could feel his wife’s hot breath as she blew on his neck. ‘Ah, come on, Harry luv, don’t go all masterful on me. I weren’t thinking of adopting the girl, I just think it’s important that she knows she has a bolthole.’

‘You think he’s mistreating her?’ Harold asked, his expression anxious.

‘Nah, nothing like that! Although he were hard enough on his own son.’

‘Adam Hawksworth was easily led. I think his father tried to toughen him up.’

‘Oh, he toughened him up all right,’ Florence replied scornfully. ‘Toughened him up all the way to New Zealand.’

Sighing, she began to sort the papers with her husband. At any moment the paperboy would arrive and start the long delivery trek around the inner town circle of Burnley, on an old bike he had inherited from his brother, who the Palmers had had to let go when it turned out he had thrown one evening’s worth of papers into the mill-house stream. When they asked him why, he shrugged and said he was bored. Years - and several run-ins with the police - later, he ended up at the prison. Working there. Like many said, who would have thought it? Inside a cell, maybe. But as a trainee warden - who would have thought it?

‘We wouldn’t be interfering,’ Florence went on, returning to her previous thoughts. ‘I just think it would be the right thing to do. And I’d like to have company sometimes. I’ve been watching her for a while. A girl like Emma would be nice to have around.’

Harold studied his wife’s upturned face. ‘I don’t suppose there’s many round these parts who’ll want to know her, because of her father. What was the sentence? Eleven years . . . She’ll be in her mid-twenties when he comes out.’

‘What Frederick Coles did was down to him,’ Florence replied curtly. ‘You can’t blame his daughter for his thieving.’

‘Maybe not, but people will. I dare say Emma’s getting a hard ride at school.’

Florence shook her head. ‘Damn my memory! I meant to tell you and forgot. Apparently she’s not at school any more. David Hawksworth might have given the girl a roof over her head, but not for nothing. She’s to earn her keep from now on. Working in the jeweller’s shop and keeping house.’ She paused. ‘Now d’you see why I want her to spend some time over here?’

She stopped short, taking in a breath. She did that a lot now, always shaken by the realisation that her beloved father was in jail. For eleven years. Eleven years without seeing the sun or being able to walk alone in the park. Eleven years without catching a tram, or buying a smoke. Eleven years locked in with men who weren’t like him at all. The two of them had lived together since Emma’s mother had died, eleven years earlier. Since poor, confused Catherine had walked out late one night and hadn’t come back. They’d found her two days later, after everyone had been searching for her. Found her hanged at the back of the deserted pet shop in Lloyd Street.

The balance of her mind had been disturbed, they said . . . At four years old, Emma had been too young to understand fully, but all her life she had watched her father’s kindness and his valiant attempts to lift her mother’s depression, asking Frederick repeatedly what was wrong. Why was her mother like this? Later she began to doubt herself, even asking if it was her fault. If she had done something wrong. At such times her father would hold her tightly and tell her that she wasn’t to blame. That her mother was poorly, that they had to take care of her . . . Which they did. But what hurt Emma the most was her mother’s withdrawal from her family. That slow slipping away until she became little more than a spectre, remote, often mute, and yet given to bouts of intense and unexpected affection. After which she withdrew again. Until her withdrawals were constant and she took the lonely walk to Lloyd Street . . .

Emma shuddered at the memory, but in truth, her mother had left her long before she actually died. Afterwards it had been just her and her father. And after their initial, intense grief, it had been a happy time, Frederick freed from the crippling responsibility of a sick wife and Emma allowed to be a child again. She thought of that time with longing. Eleven years living alone with her father . . . Suddenly Emma wondered about that. If there was some kind of message in the timing. Eleven years with her father. And now there would be eleven years without him.

Her eyes fell on the water jug and she rinsed her hands, feeling out of place and wondering how she was going to spend one decade and one year with a stranger.

‘Emma!’ a voice shouted from below. ‘Can you come down, please?’

The courtesy was there, but the kindness was not. No teasing in the voice, none of the lighter tone her father would have used. Or the intensity. Especially when he had protested his innocence. Over and over again, begging her to believe. I didn’t do it, Emma, believe me, I’m not a thief. I didn’t do it . . . His words came back to her in that instant, along with the pleading in his voice. I didn’t do it . . . But that wasn’t enough, was it? she thought, suddenly angry. If he had been innocent, why hadn’t he made everyone see that? Why had they still put him away? And sent her here? If her father had convinced them, they would still be together, and she wouldn’t be here, locked up with her hated uncle, as incarcerated as her father.

‘Emma!’

Her rage subsided in that instant. Anger was no good to her. She had to suppress her feelings, manage her own life. She had to be brave and calm - just as her father was being. Because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to serve her sentence either.

Moving downstairs, Emma walked from the narrow back kitchen into the dim jeweller’s shop. Wedged between Palmer’s newsagent’s and Jack Rimmer’s ironmonger’s on Holland Street, Hawkworth’s jeweller’s glowered like a maiden aunt between two nubile nieces. The walls ticked and chimed with the dozens of clocks hanging there, the counter facing the door blocking any further movement forwards. On the door itself, heavy iron bars gridded the glass, and at night the front windows were barred also. From the outside, a passer-by might try to look in, but only a flicker of light from a half-hidden gem or the quiet chime of a clock would be apparent.

‘Did you call me, Uncle?’

He turned, tall in an old-fashioned dark suit and winged collar. ‘I was thinking,’ he began, his Lancashire accent more pronounced than Frederick’s. ‘I should teach you how to look after the shop. I’ve been doing it since my wife died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What?’

‘About your wife dying,’ Emma said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘You must miss her.’

‘She was a quiet woman,’ David replied, implying that he counted such reticence as a virtue, something he would like to see in his niece. ‘It was hard that the influenza killed her. But that’s the way life is - you have to take what blows are dealt you.’

Emma looked down, uncertain of what to say.

Clearing his throat, David continued.

‘You have to clean the shop up, Emma, it’ll help you earn your keep. And be careful when you dust the counter tops. They’re glass.’ He paused, cleared his throat again. ‘Glass is expensive. No leaning too heavily on it, and no putting your hands inside the cabinets. You don’t touch the clocks either.’

‘All right, Uncle.’

‘You’re dainty enough, you should do all right,’ he said curtly.

‘I’ll do my best.’

He paused, staring at his niece, suddenly vacant of words. Every time he looked at her, he could see Frederick. The same wide grey eyes, the same long nose, high cheekbones and jawline. Even a hint of a cleft in her chin - like her father.

David glanced away from the reminder of his half-brother, the boy he had once liked. Until David’s attitude shifted when he realised that Frederick Coles outclassed him. Better-looking, wittier, a born sportsman, even tipped by some to get a try-out for Burnley Football Club. And as his younger brother became popular, David retreated into a cool snobbery. Having never been outgoing, his shyness seemed awkward next to Frederick’s easy charm. A strong physique, inherited from his father’s side, and his good looks marked Frederick out from childhood as someone men would admire and women would want. In another family, David’s austere but quiet attractiveness would have been noteworthy - but not when pitted against Frederick’s muscular sensuality. In fact, Frederick had inherited not only the physical stature of his father, Ernie Coles, but the confidence of that strength.

David’s tall, angular frame was gangly by comparison; his lack of self-esteem making him diffident around girls. Whilst Frederick always had females around him - gathered like greedy birds over a newly tilled field - David settled down young and married Jenny, an insecure version of himself . . .

David coughed. ‘Well, you know what to do.’

‘Do you want me to tidy up now?’

As Emma asked the question, all the clocks behind her chimed. Some soft, some melodious, one running a little late, its tone impatient. One, two, three, it snapped, David checking it against his own fob watch. His attention diverted, he moved over to the wall clock and reset it. Emma watched him. No one would have thought it to look at this austere man, but he was a hero. Not in the war that had just finished - he had been too old to fight in that skirmish - but an honest-to-God domestic hero. Apparently he had rescued one of the mill workers’ children from the Leeds- Liverpool Canal. The boy had wandered away from the safety of the Cameron Mill and scrambled down the bank, falling into the freezing February water. David Hawksworth, who had called to see the owner about his pocket watch (and was keen to get a good customer), noticed the body of the child in the canal and, taking off his shoes, dived in. When he brought the boy out, he was barely alive. At once, a hero was born. Unfortunately, the effect of the cold and the long immersion in the water left the child mentally retarded, and he became known as Daft Davy. It was an affectionate term, his parents grieving less for his handicap than they would have done for his loss, and as time progressed, the adult Davy became a familiar figure in the Burnley streets.

Still watching her uncle, Emma remembered what her father had told her about him. Oddly, David Hawksworth’s act of bravery had not made him any more approachable. Remote as a minor god, he had remained intimidating. He had been admired, but had never possessed the common touch. Her father, Emma thought, was the opposite. If it had been Frederick who had saved the child, there would have been banners and bunting in the Burnley streets for weeks afterwards. Not that her father would have played on his heroism; it was just that he looked a natural champion.

‘Strange,’ David said, to no one in particular, ‘that clock usually keeps perfect time . . .’

Emma felt one of her stockings begin to slide down her leg, but didn’t dare to pull it up.

‘As I say, don’t touch the clocks.’

‘No, Uncle.’

He turned back to her, wondering when he would get used to having Frederick’s daughter around. Or if he ever would.

‘If you go into the back, you can tidy the kitchen.’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘Then come back at five thirty and clean up the shop.’

‘Yes, Uncle,’ Emma repeated, then, realising she had been dismissed, moved into the shaded back room and closed the door.

Sitting down behind the counter, David wondered if he had sounded too hard. But it was difficult for him. He had never had a girl around, only his son. And everyone knew that sons were easier to bring up. Even Adam . . . David sighed, angered by the battering from his own memory. He had thought his life was sorted out, safe. He had grown used to poor Jenny being gone, and even adjusted to his son’s estrangement . . . Rubbing his forehead, he felt unusually perturbed. His moral thermometer was letting him down. He was too hot, too dry, too full of fire. Tormented by his past decisions, he remembered Adam. The son he had loved so much.

Had he been too harsh with his own child? But he had only wanted to keep Adam safe. On the right path. Surely that was what a good parent was supposed to do? With reluctance, David thought back. His mother, Netty, had married Morris Hawksworth and been widowed when David was only nine. David’s memory turned back the pages, looking through his own personal photograph album. Once he had been the loved child of the respectable Morris Hawksworth, Netty spoiling him. Then Morris had gone. Seemingly disappeared within a welter of tears and a hurried funeral. The loss had been enormous to the young David. Suddenly there was no father, no safety, the rudder of his life gone. In that uneasy time, David lived alone with Netty. Some nights she held on to him, and talked about his father, crying softly. At other times he would hear her weeping as the knocker-upper tapped on the neighbour’s window and the rag-and-bone man turned his cart down the end of the street. In those muted, suspended months, David had relished his premier position in his mother’s heart. He had known - from overhearing certain snatches of conversation - that they had very little money, and had realised from his mother’s intense anxiety that Netty was desperate, unsure of how they would survive. But he had also known - by her every touch and word - that he was her life.

Of course David Hawksworth as a grown man understood what his mother had done next. Being a pretty woman, opportunity came along within twelve months - in the shape of Ernie Coles. A huge man, he had fallen in love with Netty, and treated her well. But David mistrusted him instinctively. From the first there had always been something unnerving about Ernie, something sinister. Some underlying threat of violence. He had worked on the Liverpool docks before coming to Burnley, and had once run a pub. Not at all like the respectable Morris Hawksworth . . . Surprised by his mother’s choice, David had soon found himself sharing Netty’s affection. Then his stepfather lost his job on the market - for fighting. His own father would never have been dismissed from any job, but Ernie had been a bull of a man, unwilling to take orders from anyone. Timid in his stepfather’s company, David had begun to hate him. But worse was to follow. Three years later, Frederick had been born.

The boys had got on well, but when Ernie lost another job, money became tight. Forced to move further afield from Burnley, Ernie had spent the next decade touting for work - any kind of work - wherever he could find it. He had delivered coal, washed windows, done flittings, often in the early hours, moving families and their possessions on a cart before the bailiffs came at dawn. He had kept fighting, too, and gradually had got a taste for it, until he realised that he could make a living out of his fists and enjoy his work at the same time. Physically strong, he was someone people came to rely on, sometimes for work others wouldn’t take on . . . Netty had never known about this increasingly suspect side of her husband. To her, Ernie was a grafter. And you needed a man who worked when times were hard. God knows how many families had been thrown out into the streets, unable to pay the rent. As for the kids . . . Netty knew of many children who had been sent off to relatives far afield, or put to work in the factories, no one asking their age. Childhood, when times were hard, was short.

Netty admitted that Ernie did have a temper, but he had never raised his hand to her, and in the rough area around Top Street, that was a novelty in itself. Besides, she didn’t see that much of him during the week, and if gossip did reach her ears, she dismissed it. People, Netty observed drily, liked to talk. And anyway, Ernie had made a few enemies, people he had stood up to - unlike the milksop men who kowtowed to everyone. But if she was honest, she enjoyed Ernie’s reputation for being tough - never realising that in Salford, Hanky Park and Stockport, Ernie Coles was often called upon to provide a bit of real muscle, and was developing an appetite for brutality. If she had known, Netty would never have been able to relate the big man who made love to her so tenderly to the threatening figure who called on people late at night. Whilst she lay next to him on Sunday mornings - the boys asleep in the cramped attic room next to theirs - she would never have suspected her man of being hired to lean on late tenants. Not Ernie, not the husband who came home with biscuits for the kids and ribbon for her. And if she had known the truth about him? She would have made excuses - because she loved him.

David knew that only too well. His mother would never admit to what he was beginning to realise - that his stepfather was a thug. No one put on the Coles family, because no one dared, and they were protected around the rough area where they lived. And even though David was only his stepson, Ernie’s reputation extended to his protection. Growing ever more distrustful and afraid of his stepfather, David avoided Ernie Coles as much as he could, and his suspicions were finally confirmed when he was thirteen.

It had been an overcast day as David had walked towards the corner leading home, then paused to pull up his socks. But before he could move on, he heard his stepfather’s name mentioned, and listened to the conversation over the wall.

‘I heard Ernie Coles were working for Foster Gunnell,’ the first voice had said. When he spoke again, David was amazed to realise that it was the local priest, the one Netty went to for confession. The man with long nose hairs and a heavy footfall. ‘Aye, Ernie’s running with a hard crew now.’

‘He can handle himself. Always could.’

‘Aye, but Gunnell . . .’

‘Even Gunnell,’ the other man had replied dismissively. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t speak badly of Ernie. I saw him put money in the vestry box the other day.’

‘I never said he were mean,’ the old priest retorted.

‘You never said he were a believer.’

‘Well, it depends what he believes in.’

‘Not God, and that’s a fact.’

Amused, the old priest had chuckled. ‘Keeps trouble in check round here, though, and that’s no mean feat. I reckon I should be paying him - putting money in his vestry box.’

His companion had laughed. ‘I don’t suppose Ernie Coles will be rolling up for confession any time soon?’

‘If he’s mixing with Gunnell, no amount of Hail Marys will be enough.’

Unnerved, David had returned to the cramped flat over the butcher’s, wincing at the dry smell of the sawdust, which only ever half disguised the overhanging odour of blood. In silence, he climbed up the narrow stairs to the chilly bedroom, silently re-running the conversation over in his head. So it was true, he thought, all the rumours about Ernie Coles were true . . . He had thought of his own father then, of how different life would have been with Morris Hawksworth. Respectable. A father he could have been proud of. A man he could have talked to and spent time with . . . In that instant, David realised that his secret ambition would never be fulfilled. He might have dreamed of further education, even of training as a teacher, but it was only too easy to imagine how Ernie would take that news. Or anyone else. How could Ernie Coles’s stepson put on airs? Think of following a profession? It was a laughable thought. The teachers and tutors would find out about his stepfather and that would be it. Even if he got as far as being considered, who would take on the hard man’s kid?

There and then, the first twinge of bitterness had taken shape in David’s head. He had realised how his stepfather - and by extension his family - was seen. And not in the way he wanted. As Morris Hawksworth’s son, he would have been respectable. But no more. Now his reputation was directly in line with that of his stepfather. No wonder his family had had an easy ride. No wonder small gifts were left on the Coles’ doorstep. No wonder Netty could always find something decent to eat when so many others were struggling. Their home, their food and their security were down to the brute strength of Ernie Coles, and the likes of the notorious Foster Gunnell.

In silence, David had sat staring into space. At the age of thirteen, his first taste of the world’s judgement had come from the mouth of a priest - and the words would affect him for life.

‘It’s a penny to look.’

‘What?’

‘A penny to look,’ Jack repeated, winking at her, his floppy grey hair a slurry on top of his narrow head. ‘I were teasing yer, girl.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘Did you want summat?’ Jack asked, his large watery eyes peering short-sightedly at the girl.

‘My uncle wondered if you . . . if you . . . if you would mind not doing that.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Throwing water on the pavement.’

Jack put down the bucket and folded his scrawny arms. He’d been throwing water out on to Holland Street every day for the last twenty-one years and no one had complained. So why was Hawksworth suddenly objecting and sending this lass round to do his dirty work?

‘Are they wet?’ he asked, his tone abrupt.

Emma blinked. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Yer uncle’s shoes. Are they wet?’

‘Well, no . . .’

‘So if his shoes aren’t wet, what’s he complaining about?’

‘Oh, I see,’ she said, smiling faintly. ‘My uncle said someone could slip.’

‘Oh, aye, there’ve been dozens of accidents over the years. More than anyone could count. At one time, around Christmas, yer couldn’t move for bodies.’

Amused, Emma smiled again. ‘What shall I tell him?’

‘Tell him I’ll stop throwing water on the pavement when he stops his bloody clocks chiming through the night. Every quarter. Every half-hour. Every hour. Chime, chime, chime.’ He paused, changing the subject. ‘I bet you feel a bit strange.’

‘What?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Living with yer uncle. I mean, yer weren’t close before, and he’s a solitary type of man. And only your half-uncle. I mean, if it were down to David Hawksworth, he’d have it that he were an only child, with no Frederick in the mix. But he can’t get away with it now. Oh no. Yer here and yer Frederick’s daughter.’ Jack sniffed loudly, picking up the bucket again. ‘I were sorry about yer dad. I liked him.’ Touched, Emma bit her lip, Jack watching her. ‘I’m a one-off, luv, and I speak my mind. I’m not going to ignore yer father’s existence, whether he nicked stuff or not—’

‘He didn’t!’ Emma replied, her tone vehement. ‘My father’s innocent.’

‘Well, be that as it may,’ Jack countered, ‘folk round here won’t mention it. I mean, the Palmers, they’re all right, but she gossips - mouth on her like a bakehouse oven, if you know what I mean. As to the rest around these parts, I know them all. They’ll want to pretend all that bother with yer father never happened. Sweep it under the carpet, with all the other unpleasantness . . . but yer can’t do that, can yer?’

‘No.’

‘No,’ he agreed, swinging the bucket cheerfully. ‘So if it gets right heavy with yer uncle, and he gets on yer bloody nerve ends, pop in and see me. I’m not good company, but the time might come when yer want to talk about yer dad - and I’ll listen.’

From inside she could see a light burning, and she cursed herself for not having the courage to approach. She was Emma’s best friend, after all, and even if her parents insisted that she never speak to Emma again, Bessie was damned if she was going to obey them. They had been friends for too long, before they started school and afterwards. Whilst Emma’s mother was alive, and after she died and Emma lived with her father. Besides, Bessie liked Frederick Coles, and she didn’t think he was a thief.

‘A disgrace,’ her mother had said, only that morning. ‘That man brought shame to his family. And as for that poor girl . . . Well, of course it’s not Emma’s fault, but you can’t see her again. You know what people are like, Bessie, you’d be tarred with the same brush. Birds of a feather flock together.’

Peevishly, Bessie wanted to mention her brother Ricky, who had once worked for the Palmers. Ricky, who had thrown the newspapers into the stream; who had climbed on the roof of the theatre and made ape noises; who had stolen the wheels of the policeman’s bicycle for a bet. That Ricky. Mad Ricky, handsome Ricky, the Ricky who was impulsive and reckless . . . How many people had said that her brother would end badly? But in fact he’d ended up at the jail as a trainee prison officer. In the same jail that housed Frederick Coles.

Bessie knew something else that her mother didn’t - Emma visited her father. Ricky had told her that, swearing her to secrecy, because Emma didn’t want anyone to know. She was terrified of the news reaching David Hawksworth, who had expressly forbidden her to ever visit the prison. For her own good, of course.

‘What are you staring into space for?’ her mother had asked suddenly as she sat down next to her daughter at the kitchen table.

‘I was thinking.’

‘Well, if you were thinking about Emma Coles, you can stop thinking now.’ Mrs Holmes had paused, trying to be reasonable. ‘I know she was a close friend, luv, but life’s not fair and you don’t want to make it harder on yourself by being associated with the likes of her. You’re respectable, with the future to think of—’

‘I work in a cobbler’s, Mum,’ Bessie had replied dismissively, stirring her bowl of lumpy porridge and wondering how much she could leave. ‘My chances aren’t exactly glowing.’

Mrs Holmes hadn’t liked to agree with her daughter, but Bessie had been right there. She was pretty enough, but cursed with poor eyesight, and glasses that covered her best feature. As to her clothes - it was obvious that Bessie wasn’t interested in fashion. She was neat and clean, but always seemed to wear things that were slightly too large, as though she was hiding under them. Mrs Holmes sighed as she stared at her daughter’s dark serge dress and unflattering woollen stockings. Bessie was not the kind of lass boys found appealing - too smart, too much like hard work . . . But as Mrs Holmes kept watching her daughter, she consoled herself with the fact that Bessie was a hard-working, responsible girl, not the type to keep secrets. Not the type to worry her parents.

Suddenly Bessie’s thoughts came back to the present as she saw the door of the jeweller’s open. Tensing, she watched as Emma walked out and began to move down the street. Hurriedly Bessie ran after her, tapping her on the shoulder as she reached the corner.

Emma jumped, startled, then smiled warmly. ‘Bessie! I was just thinking about you.’

‘My mother will kill me if she knows I’m here, but I had to come and see you,’ Bessie replied, slipping her arm through Emma’s. At once she noticed the weight loss. Emma had always been slim, but now she seemed almost fragile. The change was worrying, and quick. She had only been living at the jeweller’s since Frederick had been sentenced six weeks earlier.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m all right,’ Emma said, nodding.

‘What’s he like to live with?’

‘My uncle’s . . . not like my father.’

‘But he treats you all right?’

Emma paused, glancing at her friend with gratitude. ‘He’s not mistreating me. He’s not friendly, but he’s not cruel, just cold. He was backed into taking me in, after all. It wasn’t his choice.’

And there it was, Bessie thought - Emma’s natural sense of justice. Even though she might be uncomfortable, and resent where she was living, she could see the other side of the equation. See how difficult it was for David Hawksworth.

Bessie doubted that she would have taken it so well. ‘You have your own room?’

‘Of course, at the top of the shop.’

‘In the attic?’

‘It’s nice up there next to my uncle’s workshop,’ Emma replied. ‘If you look out of the window, you can see over the houses all the way to Market Street.’

‘What a treat.’

Emma nudged her friend playfully. She was more than pleased to see Bessie after so long and knew wha. . .