The Miller's Daughter by Margaret Dickinson Page A

the cries from her mother’s room and then the pounding feet scurrying to fetch the doctor. The long, pacing wait in the
rooms downstairs and then the blood-soaked sheets bundled out to the wash-house by Sarah. Then the silence, the awful silence that had always followed, when Emma was not allowed to see her mama and
wondered if indeed she were still alive. And finally, listening solemnly whilst Sarah explained gently, but with the kindly bluntness of a matter-of-fact country woman, that yet again there would
be no baby.
    There followed the long, lonely days when her father was sunk into gloom. If the foetus had been recognizable as a male child, she had seen the bitter resentment in his eyes every time she was
in his presence. At those times she had avoided having to be with him until her mother was well enough to emerge from her room and fill the house with laughter once more, hugging her daughter and
reminding Emma that she was her own precious darling and that she must not mind Papa.
    ‘Men always want sons, my dearest girl,’ Frances Forrest had explained gently. ‘And none more so than your father. Maybe next time, we shall be blessed.’
    But there had been one ‘next time’ too many and the life of the pretty, vivacious woman had been taken too, along with the son whom she had managed, with cruel irony, to carry to
seven months. Emma could never forget that the last sound she had heard her mother utter had been a piercing cry of agony. It had sent a shudder of fear through the young girl and she had known,
even before anyone told her, that the worst had happened.
    Harry Forrest’s grief had been monstrous and Emma truly believed that he would never forgive her for being his only surviving child: a girl.
    From that moment, Sarah Robson had been the mainstay of Emma’s young life and had filled, as much as possible, the yawning chasm left in her life by the death of her mother and by the
subsequent unforgiving attitude of her father.
    As Emma had grown and taken on the reins of mistress of the house, she had watched the growing fondness between Sarah and the older Luke Robson, who, for many years, had lived alone in the
cottage just beyond the orchard. But Luke had none of Harry Forrest’s bitter rage in his heart against the blows life had inflicted upon him and now Emma could see every day the happiness in
his eyes, as if he never ceased to marvel that Sarah had agreed to become his wife. So Sarah was still here, an important part of the Forrest household, even if her work was now in the bakery
rather than in the house itself.
    Idly, Emma’s thoughts wandered as she laid a round spoon at the side of a knife. Maybe, she thought, Bridget Smith would be the one to put the light of love back into her father’s
eyes. Then, as the spoon slipped from her fingers, a sudden thought struck her and dragged her back to the present. ‘Soup! Oh heck! I haven’t made the soup.’ She stood a moment,
biting her lower lip in agitation. Then she sprang towards the door. ‘I wonder if Sarah . . .’
    Leaving by the back door, she ran towards the gap in the hedge, through the orchard and beyond to the low cottage where Luke and Sarah lived. Sarah Robson usually had a big cauldron of soup
bubbling away on her range.
    ‘I haven’t, Emma lass,’ Sarah answered her urgent knocking. ‘We’ve just eaten the last drop. I’ll be making a fresh lot tomorrow, but . . .’
    Tomorrow was not tonight and not soon enough. Emma sighed. ‘Never mind, I’ll have to think of something else.’
    ‘Well, give ’em Yorkshire pudding and raspberry vinegar to begin with.’
    ‘But I was doing strawberry syrup with the steamed pudding. I can’t do both.’
    ‘Well, have custard with the pudding,’ Sarah said reasonably.
    Emma looked at her doubtfully. ‘Is Yorkshire pudding quite the sort of thing for a dinner party?’
    ‘If it’s good enough for folks in our part of the world, then it’s good enough for them,’