Free Bitter Inheritance by Ann Cliff Page B

and a burden to them. They told her so, very often. Would Miss Mason be told to whip her? It might be in the Rules.
    The Bellamys had stopped her from packing anything valuable, ‘in case it is stolen’. With regret, Emma had left behind her mother’s jewellery box and her father’s gold watch. How dangerous were these wild villagers going to be? She had little to remind her of her parents and of those far-off days when she had a family and they were happy together. Emma knew that she was being sent to Thorpe to get her out of the way, so that no breath of scandal would touch her respectable relations. She would have the baby at this place called Badger’s Gill, among strangers and with no one to support her. Obviously, it was also meant to be a form of punishment and a time for repentance. ‘The child will be sent for adoption immediately,’ her aunt had said with distaste. ‘And in due course I suppose you will have to resume your duties in this house, with a solemn undertaking that this will never happen again.’
    The baby was still unreal to Emma, a horrible accident, the result of torture. Sometimes she was tempted to tell them the truth. It was so unfair to be branded a slut. But there was a strongpossibility that they wouldn’t believe her. Or if they did, they might make her marry that monster. Silence was the best course and Emma stuck to it.
    It looked as though rain was about to come in from the west and the clouds were so low on the Pennines that you could almost touch them. Industrial Yorkshire was not very picturesque, Emma decided as the train went north, first to Leeds, and then she changed for a train to Harrogate. She was glad that her trunk had been sent on ahead and she had only a light bag to carry. At Harrogate she had a drink of water and found the train to Ripon.
    The mill chimneys had disappeared and the dark brooding hills were left behind. Here the countryside was much more attractive, with a patchwork of fields and woods, little red-roofed villages and even, here and there, a ray of sunshine. There were people and horses working in the fields.
    All too soon they steamed into Ripon station. This was the tricky part of the journey. The Thorpe carrier had been told to look out for her, but would he find her? Emma stood forlornly outside the station, feeling very alone. The Bellamys had at least been familiar, but here she was among strangers.
    ‘Miss Wakefield? Let me take your bag! We leave for Thorpe in ten minutes.’ A burly man in a bowler hat and side whiskers beamed at her and led her round the corner to where a wagonette with two horses stood by the side of the road.
    Emma climbed up into the vehicle and sat down gingerly. Two women broke off their conversation and looked round at her. ‘Looks like rain, doesn’t it? Hope we don’t get wet! Are you going to Thorpe with us?’
    Emma said she was and turned away to look at the street.
    ‘Travelled far, have you, dear?’ The woman with baskets looked hard at Emma.
    ‘From Sheffield.’
    ‘Ooh, that’s a long way! Never been there myself. You’ll be staying a while at Thorpe, maybe? Who’re you staying with, then?’ They looked Emma up and down and she shrank in her seat. The baby was showing, but she’d made herself some loose dresses and was wearing a concealing long coat.
    ‘I’m not quite sure,’ Emma stammered. She wasn’t going to tellthem everything, although they’d be bound to find out before long. The women rolled their eyes at each other, but they left her alone.
    Rain still threatened but they got to Thorpe before it arrived, jogging through some pretty countryside, climbing all the time out of the plain, heading towards the purple line of moors.
    Thorpe, when eventually reached, was built of stone: the houses, the walls and the barns were all stone, some a sunny yellowish colour and others dark grey and rather forbidding. Houses and cottages were grouped round a village green, which had a rather large pond.