‘I’m surprised Silas Trent don’t take offence at the way you’re badgering old Caleb Crowther,’ remarked Nelly in her usual forthright manner. ‘The old bugger is Silas’s father-in-law after all.’ Nelly intended to use every means at her disposal to dissuade Emma from feuding with her uncle because, although she herself loathed what that wicked man had done to Emma, Nelly could see nothing good coming of it all. She felt instinctively that it would be Emma herself who was likely to end up with a bloody nose, however much she was in the right.

Emma was not persuaded by Nelly’s latest arguments regarding the man who was both a friend and business colleague and to whom she had recently sold the Australian-based trading company. ‘Silas understands,’ she replied, ‘he knows it is something I have to do.’

Nelly shivered and made an unpleasant face. ‘Y’know, Emma gal,’ she said in a softer voice, ‘I’ve allus regretted not having a father to talk to… somebody I could tek me troubles to when I were growing up… if y’know what I mean. But I’ll tell you this, gal… I’d rather be orphaned and homeless than have a fella such as Caleb Crowther for me father!’ Her mood was more indignant as she added, ‘I might have understood Martha being sway ed by her father’s authority when she were younger… ’cause when all’s said and done he’s enough to frighten anybody. But it ain’t as though she’s still a snotty-nosed kid now, is it, eh? The woman’s the wrong side o’ forty, be buggered… and she still hangs on his every word!’

She hurried her pace to keep up with Emma, who had caught sight of her son’s small dark head through the drawing-room window, where he was just about to be released from his afternoon’s studies. Soon, he would be ready for full-time tutoring; thank goodness she and Marlow were in agreement that young Bill should not be forcibly sent away to boarding-school. ‘When the time comes, we’ll let the lad decide for himself,’ Marlow had said, the ‘time’ being when Bill would be nine years old, Emma sighed. It did seem a long way off in the future, but she knew from experience how time had a nasty habit of running away all too quickly. Lately though, life had been good to her: she and Marlow were now man and wife, and they had a wonderful son in young Bill. Also, they were financially secure, what with the sale of her own business and the continuing success of Marlow’s transporting concern along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. In this last year alone he had increased his fleet of barges to twelve in all. Although Emma was always mindful of how fortunate she was, all the wealth and security in the world could never compensate for what she had lost.

Walking beside her, Nelly was aware of Emma’s quiet thoughts; she heard the deep troubled sigh and knew at once that her dear friend was thinking of the newborn girl-child that was lost to her on a grim and terrible morning almost a lifetime ago. She knew also that Emma would always hold Caleb Crowther responsible, and rightly so. But, not for the first time, Nelly’s conscience troubled her, because all these years she had allowed Emma to believe that her child was born dead, when in fact she herself suspected that the little girl had lived. The image rose in her mind now of how she had embraced the unconscious Emma in the prison-waggon that sped them away after the birth, and of how, in the vanishing distance, there had appeared an old woman who had stooped to collect a bundle from the gutter, a bundle that cried out. Nelly had never been certain, and was loath to reveal her suspicions to Emma in case it made her term of exile that much more unbearable. Later, when Emma was a free woman, so many years had passed it seemed futile to delve too deeply into what was long gone and, to Nelly’s mind, should be forgotten.